There's no place like Mumbai

Kol Life is good fun thanks to our little office group of friends. In fact I've got so used to a Kolkata life of minimum transit and general laid back life that I've forgotten how much fun Mumbai is. For starters I headed out to Gallops, a restaurant inside the Mahalaxmi race course ground where I hogged on good Conti food. Saturday morning had me getting a lot of my banking work done and then heading out to the local shopping mall.

In Kol, the best of the malls has one store probably dedicated to a few gaming consoles whereas one of the smaller malls in Borivali had almost every 3rd shop selling PSPs, PS2, PS3s and the like. My engineering days had us saving money and purchasing amazing hardware to make our PCs into gaming machines. In addition to the standard hardware I even had a joystick for flight games. Today in Kol, I have just a gamepad for my laptop and even that is not of any use since my office IT policy doesnt allow me to install anything. Seriously considering taking back my thinkpad with me to Kol. But even that's past it's prime. Too be fair to Kol, Borivali is the hub of diamond traders and the like and hence the slightly extravagant life style. But even a more middle class Dadar seems far more modern when compared to the best of Kol.

Anyway went to Chroma to help buy a laptop for my sis where I met an engineering coll friend Vinod Nambiar aka Dada, who was buying, guess what, an adapter for his PSP 2004. I immediately had a download on the features and even got a demo from him and tell you what I am hooked. we then met Kau and had dinner at Pizza Hut.

I've more or less decided to buy the PSP 3000 which will launch soon. Asked my classmates in the US to find out prices. The only hindrance is that Indian UMDs don't play on the US PSP. Rassmi, who's goin to move to the US post marriage suggests a system where she can courier the US UMDs to me which will be quite cost effective. Sounds quite interesting. Have to work on modalities. I suggested that she could just gift it to me. She didnt sound entirely convinced :).

Meanwhile another technological marvel, the social networking site facebook suddenly stimulated my digital life. I (being my usual methodical self :)) usually fill up all the details about my life on all the sites. Being at home with a fast data card and super fast broadband I was generally enjoying making changes, feeding Che (my pet on Pokey who loads only in Mumbai), when suddenly I had these comments on my profile. Apparently by not listing my relationship status on facebook I had trigerred some automatic post on my profile which said'Pranay Rao is no longer listed as Single'. what it didn't say that the status was blank :). Friends as usual had a field time pulling my leg. Also realized how powerful digital networking was. At one point I was denying (albeit with a heavy heart) any change in my relationship status to one office friend on facebook chat, another mba friend on google talk and the third engg friend on phone :). In Kol my Tata Indicom data card crawls to log me into a gtalk. Here it flies through.

Of course Kol has its own advantages in terms of travel - 5 mins flat to office. A very economical lifestyle and access to the very best of discs, restaurants n all . Kozhikode was fun, HP/Jammu was breath takingly beautiful and Kolkata is interesting. 

In Mumbai, I relax in my sofa while writing my blog on this super fast net while watching a movie on Tata sky with sound being broadcast through a home theatre when a reminder pops up for maa's serial. I can pick up the phone and have everything from DVDs, food and wine to ice cream delivered home. All these are features which has seamlessly became part of our life here. None of them would'v been seen as luxuries to me earlier. But today after spending my life in different parts of the country has suddenly made me realize the value of my life here. Life in Mumbai is an integration of technology and convenience to help savour every moment of your life. Maybe they have become necessities thanks to the huge transit times which means every minute at home is priceless. But whatever the reason, this combination of a fast convenient life and Maa's good cooking just reinforces the fact that there is no place like Mumbai, my home.

Luv,

P.R.