Mumbai Nightmares
I am sitting at the Mumbai airport waiting for my flight which is running half an hour late. My business travels often take me to Mumbai and every time I come back with weird experiences of that city.
At the outset I like to say that my brain doesn't work properly in Mumbai, thanks to the state of utter chaos that the city continuously finds itself in. The traffic is a bitch. The noise levels are enough to awaken the dead. This time around, most of my meetings were in the suburbs where it is faster to move around in a rickshaw than a cab. However crazy the cab drivers maybe, they simply cannot zigzag though traffic like rickshaws, while making your heart beat stop at regular intervals as you cling on to dear life and get thrown all around your seat. One rickshaw ride did wonders with my internal organs. When I was done with it, my liver found itself shaking hands with my lungs, both of them.
Since Mumbai traffic is such a pain, I usually stay in a hotel which is equidistant to all the places I have to visit. Since I am not familiar with the city, I always leave it up to my travel agent to use his best judgment, something which in this case, came back to haunt me. My travel agent booked me into a hotel close to the airport. I mean the planes literally flew above the hotel. And to add insult to injury, the hotel was bang adjacent to the railway tracks. When I arrived into Mumbai yesterday afternoon, I was already running late for my first appointment. So I dumped my things in my room, splashed some water on my face and ran out. I returned only after midnight to find what was in store for me - planes landing and taking off, and in the bargain, making unearthly noises and rattling the window panes. And the occasional silence was broken by Mumbai’s local trains yelling their guts out while passing by my window. I cannot remember how many times I was woken up last night. At one point, I dreamt of being woken up by the combination noise of a plane landing and a passing train. On second thoughts, I think it was the real thing.
I will post this when I get home to an internet connection because Café Coffee Day, where I am right now, is offline today.
At the outset I like to say that my brain doesn't work properly in Mumbai, thanks to the state of utter chaos that the city continuously finds itself in. The traffic is a bitch. The noise levels are enough to awaken the dead. This time around, most of my meetings were in the suburbs where it is faster to move around in a rickshaw than a cab. However crazy the cab drivers maybe, they simply cannot zigzag though traffic like rickshaws, while making your heart beat stop at regular intervals as you cling on to dear life and get thrown all around your seat. One rickshaw ride did wonders with my internal organs. When I was done with it, my liver found itself shaking hands with my lungs, both of them.
Since Mumbai traffic is such a pain, I usually stay in a hotel which is equidistant to all the places I have to visit. Since I am not familiar with the city, I always leave it up to my travel agent to use his best judgment, something which in this case, came back to haunt me. My travel agent booked me into a hotel close to the airport. I mean the planes literally flew above the hotel. And to add insult to injury, the hotel was bang adjacent to the railway tracks. When I arrived into Mumbai yesterday afternoon, I was already running late for my first appointment. So I dumped my things in my room, splashed some water on my face and ran out. I returned only after midnight to find what was in store for me - planes landing and taking off, and in the bargain, making unearthly noises and rattling the window panes. And the occasional silence was broken by Mumbai’s local trains yelling their guts out while passing by my window. I cannot remember how many times I was woken up last night. At one point, I dreamt of being woken up by the combination noise of a plane landing and a passing train. On second thoughts, I think it was the real thing.
I will post this when I get home to an internet connection because Café Coffee Day, where I am right now, is offline today.
posted by Deelip Menezes at
11:27 PM
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