Mumbaiyya manoeuver

I went to Mumbai .... Official, of course, with just one personal goal..... Visiting Mahalakshmi temple (I'm still a good boy, u see :-D)
Started from Bangalore on Feb 21, 2006:
Jet Airways 21:30 flight. My seat was in row 14 and I came to know that the Boeing flights don't have a row 13 in them (superstition !!!???) and it was next to emergency exit. So I was briefed by the air hostess on duty about the safety stuffs. Normally, I dodge it saying I know, but that day I din't want to make the hostess feel bad :-) and I listened patiently with some questions (doubts !!) in between. I am impressed with my human values myself !!!
Feb 25, 2006:
I had to cancel my return ticket to Bangalore for which I went to Santacruz (domestic airport). That just took me an hour. Then had a marathon sleep for 5 hrs in the afternoon, a nice dinner and again a sleep for ...................
Feb 26, 2006:D day - Visited Mahalakshmi temple.
You really can't keep me away from adventures for too long. yeah, I had one. Well, I was staying in Andheri(E) which is in sub urban Bombay and the temple is at a place called Mahalakshmi which is in the city. In Bombay, the autos are not allowed in the city and hence I planned to go by electric train, in spite of my faher insisting on my going by a cab. Come on, I wanted to get a feel of Bombay, after all. All went well - Took an auto from my hotel to Andheri station, got a ticket and boarded a local train. I got to know that Mahalakshmi is the 3rd stop from Dadar and when I reached Dadar I asked a co passenger whether the train
stops at Mahalakshmi and I got the answer I expected - NO. So got down from the train which had just started to move. I din't know of that there are basically Fast (limitted stops) and Slow(stops at all places) trains (I actually ignored the F and S that I saw against the trains, in the boards;-)). Happens. Took a slow train and the third stop really was Mahalakshmi. Got down and just when I wanted to feel a sense of accomplishment, came the beamer in the form of a ticket collector. Hey, I had purchased the ticket but it was a second class ticket and I had happily travelled in a first class coach. Then I had to convince him that I din't intend to do anything of that sort and that it just happened since I'm new to Bombay and son on and so forth. Eventually I had to pay the difference which was 10 times the fare I had paid (One more F & S confusion - coincidence !!! ). Put this at the back of my mind and took a cab to the temple. Had a great and peaceful darshan. Took a train back to Andheri (Got a F - class ticket and boarded an S train - GOOD !!) and once I came back to the hotel, I told myself "You have done it !!".
Mar 5, 2006: Return to Bangalore.

By the way, I liked Bombay more than Bangalore for more than one reason,
1. Bombay is very close to the definition of a city as compared to Bangalore.
2. Bombay is multi faceted as in there are people working in all industries, from all walks of life etc. unlike Bangalore where every second person works in IT.
3. Infrastructure - It will be highly unfair on my part even if I write a line comparing the infrastructure of these two places.
4. Weather - Some might feel Bngalore is better, but for someone like me who had spent 20 yrs in a hot place like Trichy, I enjoyed Bombay weather and really felt AT HOME. After all, that's the kind of weather that will encourage someone to work :-)
5. Dosa - Frankly, I felt the Dosa and sambar of Bombay much closer to the one available in Tamil Nadu. :-)
6. Autos - After Kerala, where the rate is fair and auto wallahs also fair I would rate Bombay autos.

Bye for now :-))