Mein Kanyakumari

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” 2days I spent thinking, brain storming and introspecting of where to start the real me story with you… how to share and where to start. And then I read this quote somewhere and decided, lets take you places!

My father and I love traveling and that’s why since childhood he would take us to all possible places for vacations. Those days foreign travel was a big deal, and my parents were the humble vegetarian kinds, so we fulfilled our extensive travel desires by scanning the Indian states. Get train tickets, call & book breakfast-nashta hotels and cover as many attractions as possible, was the agenda of most of our summer & winter holidays. I’m pretty proud of the fact, that out of 29, I’ve seen 20 states of my country. So while most of Indians would want to boast of Singapore, Dubai… I used to, and for that matter even now, boast of Sikkim and Kerala. And why not so?!

My sister is married to an Investment Banker in London, and I’m here in USA. But believe you me, India is the best country if you really want to travel & explore. Like UK, India is historically very very rich, or may be much more richer. Almost every state of India boasts of at least 1 historic fort, one religious city, and some ancient culturally rich site. History and India, were made hand-in-hand so while you would totally love the Buckingham palace, chances are you will find the Gwalior ka Qila equally fascinating.

USA has vast varieties of geological and geographical resources. On one end you will find the white sand beaches of Florida, Midwest will be jungles of Pennsylvania & great lakes that are jaw-droppingly amazing for the Pushkar Lake-me and grand canyons on the west. Similarly, back home in India, aren’t we also equally rich in terms of geology and geography? From the amazing Himalayas to the amazing Kanyakumari?

Wow, and while I typed the word Kanyakumari, in my mind it brought back a slide show of the wonderful memories of my South India visit in one of the Delhi winter holidays. I don’t know now, but 15 years back when I went there as a kid, it was breath-takingly beautiful and an “awesome” place. Go to the tip of your country and all you would do is “awe” with your mouth wide open and eyes wanting to capture as much as they can without blinking.

It was a long one and a half day Rajdhani that got us to Madras (now Chennai) from where our trip began. Papa, my sister and I played UNO with 2 bhaiyas who joined our compartment from Bhopal. Those days, Rajdhani food used to be really delicious. So these train journeys was a way to feast and meet new-new people, look through the pale-glassed window – the gorgeous villages & farms and not so gorgeous cities with even dirtier stations. But nevertheless, trains were and are the most fun way to travel. Even if you are alone, you have a train full of characters performing live for you. Laugh, chat, live, eat with them for the next stipulated hours of your life and you will end up loving your journey as much as you will love your destination.

Coming back to Kanyakumari, it is, see-it-to-believe-it awesome. The southern most tip of India, where you can actually see with your own naked eyes, the green Arabian Sea on your right, the brownish muddier blue of the Bay of Bengal on your left and the distinct Indigo blue of the Indian Ocean in front of you. Not just that, the sands also differ for all three of these. I really don’t know whether population & pollution has taken a toll on this extremely “Awesome” place but when my eyes saw it, I was amazed and out of words. As a kid, I had never ever imagined, to be able to see such an amazing natural beauty. On a classroom globe or on maps and atlases (notice the lack of Google back then), these seas and oceans looked just blue. In fancy wallpapers of the net, the sea comes in different colors, but to be able to see the merger of three different seas in real life, how its not just man made names, but god made distinct water entities is a total See-it-to-believe-it phenomenon. Travel, once in your life to Kanyakumari in order to marvel how partial God was while hand crafting India.

For that matter travel, travel anywhere away from your city whenever you get a chance. Not just will it bring you closer to the nature, but also to your family, friends, to your life. International travel, inter-state travel requires time & planning. Don’t wait for all of that, switch off this Friday evening, go discover life in the nearest weekend getaway. Go smell the smell of trees, gaze at the stars, eat at dhabas, shower in waterfalls. Go live life this weekend!

Do it now, sometimes ‘lets plan’ becomes never.

The American Dream

It’s only been 6 months of me in America and I truly, madly, deeply love it. There’s not one but countless reasons why it’s the most powerful country of the world, and the most loved.

6 months back, when my husband asked and introduced me to the belief of “The American Dream” we were on our way home from the airport. I was jet lagged, drowsy, giddy, cold and inattentive. When I landed at the Newark airport in New Jersey, I was waiting for my 2 gigantic suitcases to arrive so that I could clear my immigration and board my next domestic flight to home. There was a tint of excitement clubbed with a lot of giddiness. While I was sheepishly waiting for the luggage, I saw on the belt a bag was kept in a big plastic basket kindda container with a white powderish thing on it. I thought to my self, “Desi bhi na, Namak is so cheap everywhere, why would someone carry Namak from India, huh!” And then another suitcase came with the white powder on it; another basket came with white powder in it. I was like, no girl, this ain’t salt. And I rubbed my eyes, peeped closer, analyzed clearly, it was snow. I smiled to the foolish me, and welcomed myself to the snowing United States of America. That’s for the heat bound girl of Delhi & Mumbai encountering snow for the first time!

After a few days in the country I was up and about in my life. I had started reading the Driving license material, got a bank account, and basically started settling. After driving the lengths & breadths of India for 10years I accept the Left hand drive was very tough for me. The rules were so many, and everyone obeyed each one so diligently. Why not so, there are fines for every rule you break! Smallest probably is a $20 fine for not wearing seatbelt on the passenger seat, which to the new Indian me was Rs.1,200! So ya, rules are strict and very many if you drive here. But driving here is not something that tires & stresses you. Once you get your hands on it, you will love road trips and traveling.

USA is a very warm country and Americans are the most welcoming people I’ve ever seen. However good, bad, ugly, elite they are, if they cross you, they will smile or greet you or just hold the door open for you. Every car stops on the side, and the whole lane is cleared if there’s an ambulance passing by. Doctors, pharmacists (aka chemists) are so warm and loving that you feel better by just meeting them. Life is valued here. People are treated like they are supposed to be. No one will question you if you break rules, or do something nasty, everyone will mind their own businesses. But because everyone honors the rules, the government, and their country so much!

Once coming back from somewhere in West Virginia, it was late in the night and the country side becomes really dark and lonely here. We were four of us in the car and we stopped at a gas station (aka petrol pump) to refuel. Our friend who was driving got down to fill the gas (apart from few Indian owned petrol pumps in Jersey city, in USA one has to fill the petrol themselves). After finishing he went inside the office, a small brightly lit room, without telling us where is he going. The new-me to this country was worried sick for those few minutes and prayed quietly inside my heart. When he came back, he casually said, “Nothing, the machine required to fill in here, and then take the receipt inside for payments”. I was shell-shocked! Imagine a petrol pump like that in India. How many of us Indians will take the receipt inside to actually pay for the fuel that we have already filled. Honesty is a USA policy and how!

People will keep their cars dirty, but with a $500 littering fine, no one will dare throw the stinking banana peel from their car until there is a proper dustbin. It’s clean and beautiful. People value people. Americans value people.

My husband has been in USA for over 8 years now. It’s amazing how he describes America as a home for anyone in the world. In his school, Masters and office life he’s yet to come across someone who does any kind of discrimination here. All blacks, Asians, desi, gorey, Latinos exist so happily together. If the Native Americans were to protest of outsiders, America would have struggled to bloom. If Americans were to employe only their kith & kin, it would have never become the brain house of the world. It is what it is, because of its people. Every individual who is legally present in America is respected, and given equal opportunities to grow and make the nation grow. People are valued here, that’s why people value people. And these are the people who make USA the most powerful & longed country in the world. That’s the real ‘American dream’ to me. A happily growing state of life. Not just a belief, politically placed in every president’s speech. A way of life that you are entitled to with every Visa stamp, and every citizenship. And I want Indians back home to ape this western culture. To respect every fellow Indian and grow in tandem. Because if the people grow, the nation grows.

Dream on Mumbaikar

When you first land in the city, the first thing that happens to you is all your senses get activated in one go! You feel the salt in the humid sea breeze; the fishy smell that the real Mumbaikars don’t even acknowledge because its so omnipresent to them. In one blink, your sight will capture a dozen of things happening simultaneously. Sounds of all possible volumes, and when I say volumes, I mean the Indian-loud volumes! There are traffic jams, slower than you would have ever experienced anywhere in India (well Bangalore can compete too). But almost a kind of traffic that will tire you before you even reach your destination and make your ears function in a way that nothing else has ever before. That’s Mumbai for your senses.

When I was brand new to Bombay a friend told me, in Mumbai everyone is always in a hurry. I wondered what the reason was. When I became a Mumbaikar, I was also always in a hurry. And the day I realized the reason, I almost felt like the new age Einstein. It was the size of Mumbai that made people always in a hurry. Mumbai is a hugely spread out city with work centers that are inevitably far from ones home. Murphy’s law applies to everyone’s life. Wherever you live, your work place will be in the furthest corner from there – Murphy’s Mumbai law. It could be the uber cool town-side (USA people, that’s our version of downtown), the ever-germinating Parel-Dader and the mighty Andheri (mighty because Andheri East & West combined I think would be larger than any average town of India). People travel across the lengths & breadths of the city for work. And hence they are always in a hurry to keep their travel time to the least possible. A graphic designer uncle who lives in Mira road, has to run & cross the Dadar bridge every day to ensure he catches his 6.15pm Virar local only because he got traffic on the road while coming to the station. And roads are narrow, dug-up, have an absolute random religious procession passing, bhaji wali taai and dosa wale anna, an old Fiat taxi has broken down or a fat Parsi aunty is getting off from her car in the middle of the road. Reasons can be numerous, and you will be surprised, every time there’s a new reason for the traffic snarl. Oh by the way, for the Delhi me, what truly surprised me was how can the traffic stop because of pedestrians! Try crossing a Delhi road on a green signal; you will be amazed to meet God the very next second. But in Mumbai, pedestrians are the king of the road! They raise their hand in a gesture to show stop sign to the driver and cross almost blindly after that. It totally amazed me that what was the need to show the hand to stop, if the driver couldn’t see the big you, how would he see that small hand of yours. And you know this is something so similar to USA, in obviously in a very different way similar! In USA, Pedestrians are kings where they are supposed to be or have markings for pedestrians. So when Americans cross the road, they also raise their hand to the driver, not for stop signal, but as a polite thankful gesture of acknowledgement for they stopped and let you pass by. But no, Mumbaikars do not have time for all of that. Mumbaikars would rather walk 4 steps more than stop by and wave someone in gratitude.

So far so bad, right? You would think, man is Mumbai really all that bad? Yes and No. Yes its one of the worst cities you could imagine in your first year of being here. You would want to run back to your city every single day for the first year but then, slowly, like really slowly, it captivates you. It makes you its own. Before you even realize you pick on the fast walking pace, the Mumbaikar language, the stench of the fish becomes familiar to you, you do not sweat profusely in humidity like you did in your initial days and the flooded roads during the rains appear to you as a daily dose of adventure. But after your first year, it’s the only city you would want to live in India. However bad it is, you will love it like no other place.

Mumbai is a city with all sorts of people. If there is a breed of Indians, you will find them here! If concoction was a word invented by some Indian, I know he did it for Mumbai. All my Delhi life, I never had friends who were from states other than UP, Haryana and Punjab. And here! OMG!

Maharashtrians are very very culturally rich people, Gujaratis are very very business minded people, South Indians (AP,KA,TN & KL respectively) are very very religious people, North Indians are very very hardworking people, Jains, Parsis, Marwaris & Bengalis are very harmonious people. And all these varieties of people, you can find in just one single society building, anywhere in Mumbai. All of them here to earn their dream, work their way up the ladder and strive for a better life. It’s a beautifully warm and independent city that will make you feel loved in its own weird way. Whatever age or state or religion or class you are, you will find a place to eat, a place to enjoy, a sea face to unwind and a huge group of people who make you feel belonged. Every person who comes to Mumbai, slowly and steadily finds his niche here, a group, a place, a being that is so them! If you have never liked dressing up, you will totally find a group that couldn’t care less. If you were a biker in Hyderabad, you will find a biking club here that drives through the ghats every weekend. An introvert bookworm will find a perfect place at the joggers park bench, a homemaker aunty will find a similar confidante in another middle-of-the-day-Nighty-clad aunty. With so so many vast variety of people, you will find your place, a place that you will love so much for its independence and binding rules, and love it more for being like the home that you have left behind and come. If you are a Girl from Jaipur here to work in an MNC bank, be assured, you will find a Madoo friend (Bombay lingo for Marwari) whose mom will send you gvaar ki sabzi made just the way your mom does and you will instantly connect. And while you travel back after a late night at work, you will be stuck in a bad traffic at 11 in the night and you will not be able to explain to your parents screeching on the phone, that how safe you are(well traffic jams are safe right, who possibly would want to abduct you when not a soul can escape). You will find a loud Maharashtrian maushi in the local train whom you will totally smirk at, but if a guy by mistake also boards that ladies compartment, that maushi will make sure hell breaks loose on him. That Goan uncle who took the cab that you first waved at, will stop and question you, Bandra? And you will first find it so weird to travel with a total stranger, and then eventually feel totally safe while he sits in the front with the driver and makes you comfortably sit at the back seat. In the end of the journey when you share the cab fare and polite smiles, you realize we all are genuine people, though in our own rush. But then, this is how Mumbai is, different, and genuine!

A Mumbaikar’s Mumbai is not about seeing celebrity bungalows and zipping through marine drive, this is a Mumbaikar’s Mumbai. A city which inevitably tires you every day. But also, a city that keeps the zest in you pumping. Because every time you sit at a sea face and see the houses behind you, your adrenaline surges, and you promise to yourself, I will work so hard, that one day, I will own the one right over there. And that’s the point in time, you will know, that while Mumbai accepted you the day you landed here, today is the day you have accepted Mumbai! The city of countless peoples’ countless dreams is now your city of dreams too. So dream on Mumbaikar and the rest of Indians, dream on to atleast once, experience living in Mumbai.

Delhi with a Dil

It’s the city where I was conceived, born, brought up and married! It will always hold a special place in the story of my life but not in a way that Delhi people will boast about. Delhi has some of the most gorgeous houses, by far India’s best infrastructure and the old heritage monuments that can make any city look so magnificent but the real Delhi is not at all only about that. To every Delhite, Delhi is a place where they live with people who are so alike, whether publicly they agree with it or not. Every colony will have similar people, similar cars, similar houses, similar house parties; but it will vary from colony to colony. It’s not a conjuncture of vast varieties of people like a Bombay or New York is. We Delhiites are all the same, only our bank balances differ, and hence the spending habits. From inside, we might be baniya, khatri, kayastha, or a mona sardar but we all love decorating our houses with beautiful artifacts bought from Delhi Haat, Trade fair, Surajkund Mela, or trips abroad but we all do believe that houses are the reflection of the family. We host parties. And we love it, it shows how spendthrift and social we are, how peoples person our family is. I have been to some of the most awesome farmhouse parties and to some of the most matar paneer ones but they all do happily co-exist in Delhi! Every Delhite loves house parties and knows, calling food from the corner dhaaba and daaru from the theka will be much more pocket friendly than taking your whole family & friends out for a lounge treat. Also it will be a good way to casually chit-chat about the new hand crafted mantelpiece, you know just casually mentioning it! We do go out, a lot, eat butter chicken and delicious donor kababs with a diet coke or fancy dumplings at a fancier Chinese restaurant, but the whole year through, your north Indian mom, would stir up some impeccable paneer dish, dad will get Tandoori chicken and roti from the tandoor guy from the colony market and wollah, the house party is on!

Ahh, the colony market! 

Every block, every colony in Delhi has to have it’s own market to boast about. It comprises of an Aggarwal Sweets that sells gorgeous smelling jalebi and tikkis in the evening and mithai through the day. Then, a stationery shop, where as school kids, we would go more often than to our massi’s house. A grocery shop, may be a Gupta stores or a fancier Morning store, and these will sell items per demand, and per spending habits. Diced Sugarcane (for Delhiites it is their very own Gunderi) will cost vastly different in these stores, but will surely find a place in any grocery shop’s vegetable shelves. Market will also be a house to a Mother Dairy, milk and vegetables one next to each other; a mini restaurant/dhaba, a photocopy and Internet wale bhaiya in the smallest corner, a fancy parlour, and a Café Coffee Day (that’s the new boastful addition that’s started germinating in the last 3-4years). Colony market also has to house a gift shop, where everyone will buy all the birthday gifts from and everyone knows what costs what, and still everyone passes on gifts from this very shop. Not to forget the Optician uncle, the very own guy who has seen you through your first plastic specs, your lenses and now makes your Ray-Ban personalized shades that we conveniently flaunt through our selfies without any credits to the poor uncle.

That’s about a typical Delhi colony market, with few challi/bhutta, popcorn, fruit, chai and ice cream walas occupying the very very precious parking spots in front of these shops, but all in all that’s a typical colony market for you. It comes to its full glory when in the evening, kids returning from their tuitions stop by, dark lipstick, high-heel aunties with their ever demanding kids juggle between shops and uncles hog at the momo stalls. Cars with fancy horns, blaring Yo Yo Honey Singh songs, vague stickers (read Jaat boy, Smart Boy types) and flashing spoilers can be easily spotted here. You may also see, really handsome, really fair, good looking, tie clad and full sleeved shirt men stopping by to get their pastas and oats but they will be a rare sight. Common sight will be dressed to kill girls of 15-25years of age. When I said dressed to kill, I meant, if they are killed, they don’t want their newspaper pictures to look like the real them. They have to wear shorts and something really ‘mini’ with everything in flow with the color theme, accessories for the essential bling and a lip gloss for the essential pout. Very pretty, very cute, very dressed up, but then, there comes a voice that you so wished you wouldn’t have heard, “meine toh kaa tha tereko ki si-lect chal letey, tum meri baat suntey ni ho yaaaaar”. And only with that, your visit to the Delhi colony market will come to a complete!

It’s not funny (ok some people will amuse you) but most of it, is full of hustle-bustle, and with zesty people who are so alike! All girls with similar kohled eyes, straight hair with puffs; all aunties with similar suits (whichever one is the hottest in fashion), all guys in similar spikes (whichever direction is the hottest in fashion) but each one trying to CT-Scan you top to bottom for a self assurance that is mine better or hers, or to secretly get inspired ;). They all are happy, chilled-out, i-am-the-best, vibrant people. They might appear to be shallow to the outside, but Delhiites make for the nicest friends one can have. Delhiites, are lovely people, they dress up, they flaunt, they rant & rave but they love you with all their dil.

Know, what I know

When I was growing up, Mumbai was a city where Nana Nani and celebs lived. It was where mom spent a lot of her vacations visiting them and hence had a lot of liking and stories of it. For me, my Delhi had everything I needed. Best schools, amazing places to visit, to picnic with cousins, houses with front lawns, delicious places to eat, amazing bazaars to shop and my awesome friends who would dress up for tuitions and mother dairy visits also (so did I but let me just write it for the kick sake). Delhi had everything! And when my parents moved to Mumbai, I was dragged too to stay with them until college reopens and that’s not when my journey to a new city begun, it did, but much later. When I came to Bombay, I had no dreams! Or the ones that I had, pouring rains had washed them away. Why not so, I was coming from a city, where rainy day would mean your parents will let you skip school, college will be officially closed and ofcourse the fancy art class where Rainy day was a frequent topic, surely because our ma'am thought we can use some of our imagination there! But here, in Mumbai, my first 7days, trapped in a company paid 5 star hotel by the sea, I witnessed a non-stop rainy week and believe you me, it was worse than you could imagine. Sea is pretty, to every individual from a land locked city, sea is vastly pretty, to me as well it was. Until I was made to sleep in a room with gigantic roaring waves hitting the walls of the hotel. Only if you have stuffed your head in the pillow and struggled through a horrible night by the side of a sea, you would know what am I talking about. And to others, I will not deluge your idea of a pretty sea and a prettier rainy day. I am a positive girl and I shall write positively! Mumbai rains and the sea are awesome, sea, the Arabian Sea, is one of the awesomest things Mumbai has.

So no, my blog isn’t a war between Delhi, Mumbai and USA, where I will conclude which is better. My blog is about seeing these cities and the world through my eyes. To me, it is about re-living them, but to you it might be a new perspective, or just about a quick read while you travel in your metros and locals and you prefer to read so that the chatter of the aunties next to you, doesn’t get in to you.

Stay tuned, Know, what I know, I've a lot to tell!