I arrived in Bombay yesterday morning…got off at Mumbai CST (railway terminal) at around 6 am. I saw a news kiosk that and bought almost all English language newspapers (and a Marathi one: Apala Mahanagar). I quickly found a guest house that was cheap. I threw my backpack, tried to sleep for an hour or so, took shower and got out on the streets of Bombay that were slowly becoming crowded. In the beginning, as I headed unknowingly towards Bombay Stock Exchange tower, I was kind of intimidated by the cityscape. It felt grand. The old colonial styled buildings were impressive I remembered walking on the streets of New York. The streets are wide and clean: I had expected the opposite. I walked around for about two hours…but the place started getting hotter. Soon I found myself inside a travel agency office that offered the tour of the city for Indian Rs 120. In half an hour I was in Gateway of India. By the time the tour ended at 8 PM, I had reached to some of the famous places of the city including Marine Drive to Juhu Beach. Other passengers curiously got up from their seats and ran toward the windows when the guide, pointing a house, said: Amitabh Bachhan. But I was interested in the beach and the towers, not where the actor lived. [More about Bombay in one of the next posts.) Continue reading →