It's Mumbai

Mumbai is known as the land of opportunities. I spent almost two days over there where I tried to sneeze in the city where 6.5 million people travel through local trains and they know 5 of them will die today because of these local trains but they still travel in it, The city which never stops moving whether it is 26^th July, ’05 when record 946 mm rain fall and city was about to be drown, the city which is full of superstitious (in terms of religion) people, the city where every person living there whether it is small kholi or big bungalow dreams about becoming the richest in days, the city where you’ll find the small temples under every other tree like:

Mumbai has better infrastructure than the other cities where I went including Hyderabad and Chennai but not better than Nagpur. But Mumbai isn't what we assume by watching Bollywood movies. It was a totally flip indeed. I remember the moment when my flight was about to land at Mumbai’s local airport (Santa Cruz) while returning from Chennai and almost for five minutes from the air I could see the worst slums of this world may be. Those pictures were so drastically painful that the person seeing that for first time will not be able to hold himself from tearing. The worst problem of Mumbai was Traffic. It was in incredibly bad situation. Roads were far narrower than what we have in Karachi. There were far less flyovers and there was any concept of under-passes. Comparing Mumbai with Karachi, being unbiased I believe Mumbai is no where nearer to it except that Mumbai has better and bigger shopping malls, the glamor was good and of course, Mumbai’s night life rocks. Mumbai is nice place to visit and Karachi isn’t. But coming to a common man, I believe that a common man doesn’t need the night life nor he needs the glamour or huge shopping malls but a less stressful and easy life. The common man has to struggle far more than what a karachite has to do over here even though the population is almost the same of two cities (160 million). Karachite has far luxurious life than a mumbian. But unlike Karachi, There was a treand of big Buildings though not skyscrapers but if you compare those with karachi ones definitly those were skyscrapers. 30-Story Buildings were quite common over there and prices were sky-rocketing. In Worli, one square feet cost around 60K INR means 1000 square feet flat will make upto 60 million INR where the same flat even in most expensive area of Karachi (Lets say, Zamzama or Phase-VIII) will not exceed 30 Million PKR.

Another interesting and new thing that I noticed over there was the presence of small temples almost after every other signal. It was good of course but the reason behind that undoubtedly wrong (Why?... wait for my another blog). I also visited the famous Sidhividhaik temple where I had a very strange experience. A business person also came to visit there while I was in queue and about to enter the main temple. Few temple caretakers intervened and asked every one to go out and wait at main gate so that those business logos can offer their own prayers while others watching them. “What the hell is this?” I thought. It seems like people were waiting there like animals throwing upon each other while the humans were offering their prayers. It felt so bad that I had never experienced before and hopefully I never will. I used to think that I have missed my religion a lot being in Islamic state but not this kind at least. In Pakistan, we have harmony wherever you may go.

Coming to shopping now, Mumbai is an awesome place to shop only if you have an ample amount of money in your pocket. It is quite expensive than Karachi when it comes to brands and even if you start considering the exchange rate, you will never able to shop anything. But there were quite a huge variety of brands than in Karachi.

Now coming to the Girls, hoooooooo... I feel really bad about mumbai boyzzz... even I spent the majority of time in Porche areas of mumbai but i don't remember even a single face for which I could say 'Not bad'. Everything was artificial unlike Karachi where you find the pretty faces after one an other. So Hats off to Karachi Girlzzzz. And one more thing I want to add, I hardly find any girl wearing skirts or anything like that though i found two or three, so what people assume over here for Mumbai is something which is still a long way a head even for them. The atmosphere for women wasn't secure at all. Women don't feel secure going out in their cars after 9 or 10 pm.

Overall, If God asks me to choose between Karachi and Mumbai; I would have chosen Mumbai before this visit but not now. :-)