HEAVEN ON EARTH ??

Crowd, crowd and more crowds. No, this is not a rally against corruption in support of Anna. This is a typical Sunday evening crowd in Mumbai. There are not many places to see or hang out in Mumbai, so we can see people everywhere. No point in going to the beaches too where the sea of people put the actual sea to shame! It is a myth that the volume of traffic is lesser on weekends than the weekdays. So, this Sunday I too decided to go on a much needed shopping spree.

Like in most cities, here in Mumbai too, traffic signals are great places to buy stuff at throw away prices. Right from toys, balloons to seasonal fruits you get them all. My personal favourite, books and flowers. Red roses. Long stemmed. They add colour and fragrance to life and home. Bought 3 dozens of them.

Linking Road, Bandra is a happening place. That’s our destination. Footwear is what we wanna buy. It is so bustling with people that it is a miracle that nobody gets hit by any vehicle. One cannot shop here leisurely. You have to pick up the stuff you want, hand over the dough and move on….or the crowd will move you out! Elsewhere in India, the male-female ratio might be 1.2 : 1, but, in the markets like these it is 5 to 6 women vying for the attention of one MAN…the salesman.

People are buzzing around the eateries too; don’t know whether they are eating from their plates or someone else’s! We somehow wrestled the crowd and bought some cool and cheap footwear. (Yeah, I am not the Hi-fi type)

Finally, dinner at Govinda’s at ISKON. The restaurant is called “Heaven on Earth”, because they know what they are serving is out of this world, especially if you love Gujju and Rajasthani food. It was a multi-course buffet. Ideally, I should have stopped eating after the first course of welcome drink (4 varieties), Salads and farsans….I stopped counting the varieties of them, too much to remember and eat too. But, temptation got better of me and I went for the second course of Roti’s and Puri’s with assorted curries. I was so full that I had to literally loosen my trousers button! My better senses made me skip the third course of different flavoured rice and dals. For a person like me who succumbs to the weakness of sweets, it was hard to resist the Bengali sweet, kheer, and kulfi. I was bloating and so satiated by the end of it –a peaceful but uneasy, heavy feeling. It is not fair for them to tempt us lesser mortals with our weaknesses. Truly, it was a feeling of heaven on Earth, made us forget the slog of our shopping spree.