A different morning

The morning of 1st September, 2001 was not very different from other days except that I would begin my career in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai as Scientific Officer and would never stay in the New Calcutta lodge after this morning which had been my shelter in Mumbai for last two days. Fortunately, I had the address of this lodge with me when the ESIC guest house caretaker at Colaba refused to provide accommodation on unavailability ground even after showing him the request letter which I had from my Boropisi. She was an employee with the ESIC, Kolkata office and gave me the guest house booking letter earlier as well when I came to Mumbai first time in June’01. With a suitcase in hand and a bag on back, I stared at the sky above. It looked different and smelled salty. Suddenly, I recalled that I had a hotel address in diary inside my bag and managed to get myself in New Calcutta Lodge near Crawford market. I took my baggage and came downstairs biding goodbye to my tiny abode. The morning in Mumbai is perhaps the busiest compared to its contemporaries. Streets are crowded since early dawn and everybody rushes towards all possible directions which remind me of the significance of ten different geographic directions over the popular four that we’re taught in early days. Why people rush so much here, I remembered asking myself when I came to this city for the first time with my father to attend my first successful interview at Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. I never had seen such madness in Kolkata except when local trains arrive at Sealdah or Howrah stations carrying loads of people from adjacent districts! Is there a Goldrush here too! To earn a square meal, I soliloquized absentmindedly; I’m not an exception either. VT station was not far off from New Calcutta lodge. Last two days, I used to come here to have a boiled egg in the evening from an aged masi. Even the trivial things woo a lot outside home, I thought but how someone makes both ends meet in this expensive place on such futile earning, I became little bit philosophical but Masi seemed to be unmoved on this thought at backdrop. Numerous lines on her wrinkled face proclaimed in silence to have well surpassed such insignificant thoughts dwelling with deepest intricacies of life in metro like Mumbai. The PANVEL local from platform no 1 was scheduled to depart at 8:30 am. Trains are very punctual and frequent in this city. If local train service goes off for a single day, the whole city would be paralyzed. If people expect public transport system should be well engineered, they need to take care of it as well. I had seen people here religiously buying ticket without getting vexed standing in a long queue. Nonetheless they would definitely run towards the train after getting the ticket from counter, I assumed, calculating quantum of time they would like to compensate, spent in the queue! It took about fifty minutes to reach MANKHURD, nearest station of BARC. I searched for an auto at the station but none understood in spite of my repeated efforts that I wanted to go to BARC (I spelt it out like bark). Only when I read it letter by letter, they promptly understood and I learnt a lesson that few letters put together are not always intended for a unique meaning!