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………
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