Mumbai Meri Jaan IV

11th January:-
The plan for today was to visit one of the very far and little known attractions of Mumbai, Murud.
We had to start as early as possible, and as usual we failed. We were able to reach CST only by 0820 by that time; our first ferry to Alibaug had already left. Again, blaming each other I and Subha walked through the lanes of Mumbai. We reached the RBI building first and took a snap in front of it. as soon as I was trying the click the second one, 2 security constables surrounded me and asked me not to take snaps. He also asked me to delete the snap which I took; I managed to escape from that. Then we took snaps in front of Library. We walked further and reached Mumbai stock exchange.



Here, we checked to the security before taking the snap. We waited till the market opened and saw the first transaction before leaving.
After having a quick breakfast, we reached gateway of India at 0900hrs. The ferry started at 0915hrs and again sailing on the Arabian sea, we reached Madwa port. We had to take a free bus from there to Alibaugh town and this free bus was operated by ferry guys itself. The bus took us through the old village roads and crossing through the broken roads, small village schools, huts, wells, tea shops and typical fishermen boats we reached Alibaug at 1100hrs.
We were disappointed as soon as we reached Alibaug, because the fort there was closed due to high tide. We will never return or accept the defeat just like that; we decided to move forward and proceed towards Murud – Jhengira fort without even knowing if we would be able to reach there or not. We hunted for the best possible ways to reach there and ended up taking a bus. The route was really great; we had sea on one side and hills on other, and immediately the bus gets into some deep forest, then to a village and near a abandoned bus station and people in that bus station jump over the bus as if it is a summer rain.

We were dropped at Murud bus station, with countable number of tea shops and small pan shops, it was very silent. We were told that we need to take an auto till Jengira fort. We boarded a share auto and it took another 30 mins.
We were dropped somewhere near a ferry ghat and I was still trying to see where the fort was. To our surprise the fort was in the middle of the SEA. I was wondering how to reach there, like other people did. We were assisted by the local school teacher, who took us to a counter where he said we could take a catamaran to reach the fort.



The people at catamaran, charged 30 rupees per head as up and down charge, they said they would give 45 mins time in the fort to roam around.
While on the catamaran, the person rowing it started scaring us, he said the fort is very big and we might get lost inside without a guide. He said a guide is must and he made us believe that we won’t return in 45 minutes. We all agreed to pay 50 Rs per head for the guide, and on reaching the shore we understood that he himself was the so called GUIDE.



The fort was of 18th century, completely surrounded by Water. It was initially called as jaljeera and changed to jhengira in course of time. They were covered with 22 canons on all sides we spent more than an hour admiring each and every stone of the fort. There were even a couple of sweet water wells inside the fort, which was completely surrounded by salty sea water. Need to appreciate the king, who built it, it would have been one of the master pieces in his times. The left over walls were still strong.
After a long travel around the fort we took the same way back to our nests, that is, catamaran  auto  Bus  again a bus  Ferry till gateway of India.
It was only 1900hrs and we still thought we had time to hang around; we popped into the Jehangir art gallery, where a art exhibition was conducted. Again from there after having dinner we took the local trains to our destinations and one more day was over in Mumbai……

Mumbai Meri Jaan III

10th January:-
This day was dedicated to temples and Ragesh initially was totally against it. We again met at Thane, took a train to Dadar.
As soon as we got out of Dadar, we saw many roadside kajra shops; I haven’t seen so much flowers in any place. It was a busy market area below a flyover and we walked across it to catch a taxi to siddi Vinayak temple.
Siddi Vinayak temple was nice beautiful, but crowded, I never expected to see idol from so near, it was bit mesmerizing. It looked like a modern building to me, with LCD TVs here and there. Prashads were free, and my friends bought some photos of the idol.
We came out and had a delicious breakfast which almost filled my tummy till neck. Today we tried pav bhaji, poori and some samosas.
From there we took another taxi till Mahalakshmi temple. An elderly taxi driver complaining about the indiscipline driving of youths drove us slowly to Mahalakshmi temple.
This was a bit older temple and we were invited by a small Shiva temple below the main temple. We gave our salutes to them, and walked again inside a busy market line and reached Mahalakshmi temple. Lakshmi was accompanied by Saraswathi and Sakthi in this temple.

Once we completed submitting our requests, we walked down to Haji Ali Darkah. Sea and markets on both the sides, Haji Ali Darkah was a completely different package when compared to the other two religious places, which we visited early in the morning. I had been to many Darkahs but there was something different in this one, was it the location, sea breeze, the crowd, the way worshiping, I don’t know, something very different. We spent some time on the sea rocks behind the darkah. As soon as Subha and Ragesh saw the sea, they jumped like kids and it took a long time for me to get them out of there. Instant photographers followed each family or group whoever visited the place. After escaping from them we came back to the dock and back to the main road. Even after a very deep search in each shops, Subha couldn’t find her micro Quran.



We had plan of having lunch at noorani’s in front of Haji Ali, but we had to go to another temple. So seeing the chickens at that shop from outside, we took another taxi to mumba devi temple.
Mumba devi temple was in the middle of very old, tiny bazaar lanes. Around 50-100 small shops, surrounds the temple on all the four sides. They say that it was because of this devi, the city is called as Mumbai. She has blessed, that no one in the city will sleep empty stomach. I now understood why 1000s of people try reach here trying to find their destiny...



Enough of taxi, now we decided to take bus for whatever distances it may be. We took 141 numbered BEST bus to Valkeshwar bus stand. We had to reach Banganga one of the very oldest area in Mumbai.
We reached the Valkeshwar temple and Banganga after checking with a couple of mumbaikars, It was walk able distance from the bus stand. We walked through the Banganga Pond, which people said was built in 1200 AD, it was atleast 200 meters in length and 75 meters in width, but today the pond is no more usable, it was filled with lot of garbages. We reached the Valkeshwar temple at 1545hrs and the temple was closed till 1600hrs.



Since, Ragesh was too tired he sat in front of a house and started relaxing. I and Subha took a walk around the place to check out how the oldest part of the busiest city looks. In that very tiny area atleast 1000 houses may be there, atleast 4 per house. All of them haven’t even wasted a single inch of land. Houses were built one over another, with one room, one and half rooms, with or without toilets. The small lane, we entered never seemed to end, even though it was a single lane, we didn’t want to lose the route and we returned.



We returned to the temple and after worshipping lond shiva we proceeded towards Hanging Gardens and Babulnath temple. We took another bus, and got down at hanging gardens. First I didn’t understand the reason behind naming that place as hanging gardens, later we were told that Mumbai’s water supply in olden days, were distributed from below this garden. Since this garden was hanging over the distribution system, it was called as hanging gardens.
We took some small downsteps, to reach Babulnath temple, which was located below hanging gardens. Babulnath temple, one of the oldest temples in Mumbai was very silent and beautiful. One flutist was playing flute which made the whole area divine. Initially I thought it was some music system, which was playing. This was not much crowded but it was very peaceful in the heart of the city. We rushed back to hanging gardens to see Queen’s Necklace.
The whole Marine drive area can be seen from Hanging Gardens, which at night looks like a Diamond necklace. After witnessing a very beautiful view of Marine drive, we took another bus, which took us next to Taj hotel.
Since, we missed our lunch at noorani this morning; we planned to compensate it by having dinner at Bademiya. We rushed to Bademiya before it got crowded. Even then we had to wait for 45 minutes to get a seat, next to some old godown. I really have to mention about Bademiya here, it is just a roadside hotel, and it seems earlier people were having food only by standing. Till date, the hotel is on road, and the whole lane is blocked for these guys every night. Located exactly behind Taj, Bademiya seems to have cut atleast 50% percent of Taj’s income from its restaurant. Most of the regular guests book their rooms in Taj and have their dinners here. Why so special, we were waiting to find out.




We ordered romali roti and bhunna, and BHEJA FRY. I loved the bheja fry and romali roti was even special there. We had to share our table with 3 others and we never minded it because we all were lost in the taste of Bademiya. Tables were put on the road were never empty, and even people never hesitated to sit on their bikes, or cars to have dinner. We had to run as fast as we could to catch the train to our rooms.
Ragesh, wanted to reach home soon to sleep soon, because he had to go to office the next day.I dropped my friend at Ghansoli and took the last local on that route to Thane, thus achieving my 3rd wish of travelling in empty last local. It was bit scary but I was able to travel all alone in the empty local coach, that too in the foot board.
By the time I reached the room, Ragesh was already sleeping, I also started snoring in a couple of minutes………………….

Mumbai Meri Jaan II

09th January:-
As per the plans we had to start this day as soon as possible, so that we would have enough time to cover as many places as possible.
But as usual, I was late in reaching Thane station, which was selected to be the meeting point for rest of the days. Ragesh and Myself rushed to the Thane local station, where Subha was waiting for us (45 minutes to be exact)
Since it was a Saturday, the local trains and stations were bit empty. We took the first fast local to Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminus, which was earlier known as Victoria terminals. Even that day, I was hearing lot of people calling it VT.



We had nothing inside our stomach and rushed out of VT to find some good restaurant. Looking at such a majestic beautiful architecture of the VT, we reached the Road and after 4 hard attempts we were able to cross it. It wasn’t a busy road on that day, but I bet it would have been on any other weekday.
On reaching the other side of Dr.Dadabhai Naroji road, we found the sub way which came from VT. We promised to look for a subway in all busy roads from now. We found a bunch a road side shops and I, Ragesh and Subha selected one shop for each of us. I wanted to try something which very common and famous in Mumbai, so started it with Sheera (a sweet dish made of sooji) , Ragesh was trying out a bread omblette while Subha selected her all time favorite Masala Dosa there also. But the Masala dosa was better there, it was called mysore masala dosa. In that tiny shop, he placed 3 stoves and one tava on each of them. He prepares the bhatter on the tava and slowly adds, cheese, potato, beetroot, carrot separately and smashed together, which made the dish yummy.
After a heavy breakfast, we realized that we had to go out and look how the city is, and from there took a taxi till Gateway of India.
The taxi, which usually is a FIAT PADMINI, I thought, was designed to accommodate 4 people including the driver. However, this one was already filled with 3 people in front row and the driver pushed 3 of us in the rear seat. He then got into the front seat, which made 4 of them in the front side. Before I began to think I was lucky to be in the rear side, 2 more people got into the taxi. Don’t strain too much with your calculations; we were 9 of us inside it.



But within 5 minutes we reached the Gateway of India and it took another 5 for all of us to get down.
We walked towards the Gateway and around us there were 100s of people either giving pose for the snaps or taking snaps. I felt nowadays people forgot to enjoy the sceneries with their bare eyes. Most of them were keener in taking their own snaps in front of the great monument.
We enjoyed the Majestic trio, the Gateway of India, and 2 Taj palace buildings and decided to move forward to the Elephanta caves. They charged 120Rs for the travel and extra 10Rs for sitting the upper deck. With lot of expectation in everyone’s eyes, the ferry sailed slowly towards east of Gateway.
Now and then we were able to see many cargo ships, Navy ships, Cruises, Speed Boats, Fishing Boats, Cattamarans etc., making our way out of these; we reached the port in Elephanta.
I found a person, who was enjoying the views, holding his brother’s kid in his hands. I just clapped twice and waved the hand to that kid and immediately It jumped into my arms. Within seconds, I wasn’t able to see the guy who handed the baby to me, or his brother nor the kid’s mom.



For around 20 minutes they were enjoying the sea around the ferry and I had to be a baby sitter in the ferry, I promised to myself not to wave hands to any kid from now.
As soon as we reached elephant caves, a small toy train took us near the caves and we started exploring the ELEPHANTA CAVES, and beautiful idols carved inside them. For some time, I thought I was inside a hospital, because most of the idols had lost their hands, legs, nose etc., but still they stood so high inviting all of us with a smile.
We then trekked towards the cannon hill and enjoyed the view of sea around us from the top of the hill. Big ships and even the long harbor looked like ants from the cliff.

After doing some shopping, we ran back to catch our return ferry, this time we didn’t get the upper deck and I felt lucky that no other kid also was around us also we were happy because it was too hot.
Our next stop was, prince of Wales Museum. Usually I don’t find anything interesting in museums and this was not exceptional. Subha and Ragesh were lost inside the museum, while was playing with the small kids around me all time. I was able to understand, what Subha and Ragesh were thinking about me. All they said was “Dude Grow UP”

I was the first one to get out of the museum and immediately we took another Taxi to Marine drive. We sat there and relaxed for some time watching the sun rest inside the Arabian Sea. We decided not to roam around more, and we were dead tired already. We took a nice cutting chai, and reached Churchgate station and took a train to Thane.



Subha took her train to ghansoli and we took our bus to Patlipada, where I stayed.
After reaching home, we had a couple of drinks and Ragesh introduced me to his roomies. Later I had dinner and went to sleep………