A day in my life in Mumbai - By Megharaj Rajeev

Just when I was pleading with the guy who held me for a ransom that I would never ever have dinner at the five star hotels, the calling bell rang. I woke up to heavy breathing. Thank god it was just a terrible night mare. I pinched & said to myself, I am glad I am alive, inspite of living in Mumbai.
I literally dragged myself out of the bed to pick the morning news paper. First thing I saw was the obituary column, to see if everyone whom I know including me were still alive. I opened the newspaper to a gruesome joke. A ex chief minister accusing the current chief minister of being incompetent, I thought one needs to be corrupt not competent to rule this state. As I read three pages of the news paper I recollected I had to meet a friend in South Mumbai in the afternoon, I took a quick shower and decided to carry the news paper with me to kill time in the train if I did not get killed. I quickly purchased a first class ticket to avoid the long queues and boarded the train and continued reading the news paper from where I had left.
The fourth page of the news paper carried the priorities of the newly elected Deputy Chief Minister who claimed during his time as the home minister he had adequately provided the state police with sophisticated weapons to take anyone head on.
Like any Mumbaiite I could not have believed him, after all he is a politician. I thought to myself I should not be taking chances therefore it was better for me to read the daily astrology column before I disembarked the train at the CST station. As luck had it the astrologer had written nothing about a terror strike on me, I thought it was safe for me to disembark at the CST station. I disembarked the train only to see a rather unusual deserted look of the CST station, where otherwise even the dogs think twice to wag their tail horizontally. As I walked down the platform towards the exit I saw two constables with the fiber Lathi’s (Stick’s) in their hands, that reminded me of the statements made by the Deputy Chief Minister who had provided the sophisticated weapons to the police force during “His times”. Deputy Chief Minister being sixty years old, I guess he was referring to his times when he was really young. I thought I should not read too much into it and carry on.
I met my friend and started walking the talk; we went around seeing places which was seized by terrorist’s couple of days back. Each cop whom we spoke to had his version of the story. My friend who handles quality for an MNC said, “We need to have the version control in place before we lose track on the number of versions we had heard of the same incident until now". I clicked few pictures of the Taj, Trident before the dusk started setting in.
True to being typical corporate employees my friend & I walked into the bar which was also attacked by the terrorist during the city's worst carnage.
As we settled into good music & beer, in this rather deserted bar which otherwise had new customers waiting for the occupied chairs to be emptied every half hour.
My thoughts began to roll back to the “spirit of Mumbai” & the current spirits in Mumbai which arose because of terrorist attack. I asked for the bill not before clicking few pictures of broken glasses & the marks made by the penetrated bullets on the walls & the roof of the Bar.
I wrote a note to boost the spirit of the owner, while handing the note to him i told him, his bills should carry this note. “Nothing can stop us from getting you into “High Spirits” yes! spirit was the word carved out of niche even here.
I bid adieu to my friend before walking back to the CST train station. As I boarded the train I saw couple of more constables with the magic wand provided by our Deputy Chief Minister to fight the terrorists tooth & nail. After reaching home I thanked God that i am still alive & prayed to him for a transfer to a safer city soon.