City Life...

I simply love the sounds of a city coming to life. It has a magic of it's own, even if it is the dreaded city of Mumbai. After being tucked away in the peace and quiet of Viman Nagar, Pune for 3 years, it is quite an adjustment to relocate to this bustling city again. I'm making good progress however. While the news that the city greeted me with on the 7th of April 2011 was shattering, it is slowly redeeming itself in different ways. The smell of freshly baked bread at the bakery; watching vegetables being unloaded from trucks to the roadside vendors' carts; the vigorous dusting undertaken at all the stores right after opening, the various signboards and wares that these shops choose to display on the pavement being brought out in full glory; the florist stringing garlands out of fresh flowers; delivery of milk at the dairy; these and so many others are the things I love about the city first thing in the morning. Walking around at this time of the morning has quite a few advantages; the freshest supplies are yours for the taking with hardly any competetion around so you can take your time and choose the best and of course work get done so much faster. There are however glitches in this system of thought; since all enterprises do not deign to open at that hour, you often find yourself cursing them and having to return at a more reasonable hour to try sending out a courier, collecting your laundry, changing a library book or CD, buying light fittings or clothing. There has to be that perfect time that needs to be established for otherwise you may end up setting out too late and then being greeted by half shut shutters indicating a 3 hour lunch and siesta session. Post this session you find all shops displaying a great reluctance to conduct any business until the reasonable hour of 6 pm when the streets begin to bustle with life again. This time there is no qustion of peace and quiet and we find hordes of people at every shop and shopkeepers skillfully using all their pent up energy to sell their wares. Fried junk food and other street food causes quite a bit of congestion on the pavement leaving no doubt that this is probably the mot popular time of the day. As the evening wears on it is the clubs abd restuarants that have their share of people's attention and come night the only thing open till late enough is the ice cream parlour and the 24 hour pharmacy, and ultimately the city slumbers again. It is the same cycle of life that we see everywhere with each stage having its own share of joy and sorrow, light and darkness, laughter and silence, heat and cold an the list goes on. So does the cycle will go on, never stopping, never ending, just keeps moving from one day to the next. But all in all, I think I like mornings the best :)