Mumbai- City Of Dreams !

Popularly called as BomBae. A city with rich people and poor people, modern and traditional, inspiration and desperation, glamour and dirt. The city which never sleeps and the city of dreams.

There were no mornings, just late nights and super late nights. In the afternoon, the city buzzed constantly like an alarm clock. I’d heard about the insane traffic and crazy streets, about the gullies and the people who lived there. I stayed for 10 days and it always sounded like home.

My first day in Mumbai was something out of a dream. I got off the flight, after meeting my uncle we drove to NMIMS and walked around a bit and looked at the way the city was made. To my left, twenty shops selling food right next to each other. The walls splattered with uneven paint and dust and gravy stains. To my right, a busy street filled with too many cars and rickshaws and twenty more shops. I stood at the edge of the road and could hear the way different stories crashed and apologized and moved on. Words danced on everybody’s lips and they waited for no one to spill out. A bald man spoke to his wife (maybe) as he ate a vada pav, a 70-year-old woman giggled as her grandkids ran around her in circles in their school uniforms screaming ‘Dadi, Dadi’ (grandmother), a young couple held hands and blushed as they walked past me. The city was breathing and you could hear it.

You must be wondering why this crowded city with stained walls and traffic was something out of a dream for me. Well, everything from the way the people laughed to the way the road was uneven and the smiles were broken made the city feel very real, and that’s what I’ve always dreamed of – a real city in a world that walks every day towards becoming a dream. I’ve always wanted my home to be a reality check and the uneven streets and blue skies fit the bill.

I noticed many weird things about Mumbai in the days I stayed there. If you looked closely enough, you could notice the gradient of light as it shifted from the headlights of cars to that of the windows of buildings at 3 a.m. On most days, even the sun didn’t try too hard to make sunsets look pretty because it knew that the people were too busy to look. But every now and then, it would turn a beautiful shade of red and everyone would look at the sky. If you took a rickshaw at the wrong time, the traffic would be so intense that even people who walked would overtake your vehicle – and in that way, Mumbai had a great sense of humor. Mumbai is a busy city but there is some sense of belongingness too. Be it the colonial architectures, the overcrowded local trains, fascinating Marine drive, famous street food or the fast-paced life of the people in the city. Crowded Mumbai is a beautiful mess. Along with fashionable lifestyle to Asia’s biggest slums, to sprawling skyscrapers, the streets are full of life. Mumbai is the city that has it all. Mumbai has a lot to offer for everyone.

It is a city for artists. From empty cafes (rarely, though) to packed streets, it is a city that inspires art. In Mumbai, you can find trees that rustle in the right way to help you sing and skies so beautiful that they’re made only for canvases. You can find roads that rhyme perfectly and hearts that dance on the right beats.

I’ll talk more about Mumbai again but I’ll leave you with this: The streets, the houses, the sunsets at marine drive and the hearts of Mumbai – they’re all too crowded.