One of the most anticipated trips came to an end sooner than I had anticipated. I am talking about my trip to Mumbai. It had a touch of everything in it. Right from lunching at 'Not just jazz by the bay' to shopping for leather jacket at 'Dharavi'. If you are not quite familiar with Mumbai, 'Not just jazz by the bay' is a high-end restaurant located just outside the Brabourne stadium in one of the posh areas of Mumbai and 'Dharavi' is one of the biggest slums in the world.

Going with the title of the post, I'll ramble upon every word that I have used in it;

Meetings: This was the first item in my agenda. Meeting cousins (My sisters, Brother-In-Law, Niece) meeting friends, meeting old colleagues, meeting old managers. It was a wonderful feeling to meet everyone after five months. Some people were surprised to know and looked at me as though I am an Idiot when I told them that I had come to Mumbai to meet people and not on any official work. But most of them were elated to meet me which was something very nice to see. 

Movies: I watched Fashion and Quantum of Solace. Fashion is a good movie but very slow. I had booked tickets for this movie from Bangalore itself. Talk about planning :). I give it two and a half stars. I would have given it one more had it not dragged on for three hours.  Quantum of Solace is a good movie but did somebody tell you that it is a bond movie? Bond should stick to his tuxedos, vodka martinis, expensive cars, gadgets and leave the action to Jason Bourne or Rambo. The action nevertheless is spectacular. It gets three stars. Now that revenge is off Bond's head, we can expect the true bond to be back in his next movie. The extra star is for this optimistic expectation. 

Memories: It is such a wonderful feeling to go back to the place where one once lived and worked. It brought back all my fond memories. It brought along with it memories of people who played a part in my life directly or indirectly, memories of late night movies, memories of late night parties, late night bike rides and many other things. The feeling is very hard to describe and it is something that one has to go through to understand it accurately.

Masti: Food Court at the In-Orbit Mall, Mantra Lounge (Hiranandani), Turner Road Chaat, Main Land China, Naturals, Utsav (Powai), Out of the Blue (Bandra) are some of the restaurants / ice cream parlours I visited. Shopping for export surplus clothes, shopping for leather jackets, Kailash Kher Concert (IIT Powai), Local Train travel, Double-Decker bus travel, time spent with my adorable niece, lovely friends and relatives, and not allowing a dear friend to study for CAT are some things that I enjoyed doing the most. The masti doesn't stop here. I fought with an auto rickshaw-driver and a taxi-driver over the extra fare they were charging :).

Magic: I am speaking about the magical feeling of nostalgia that grips one when he visits a place that once was so dear to him. I was lucky to be back in Mumbai. Not many people are lucky in this matter. Something truly magical about the trip was that the time kept vanishing in thin air every time I wanted more of it.

It was a wonderful, and a truly memorable trip that made me sick (I caught cold) but rejuvenated my senses. And if one asks me if I would like to visit Mumbai again, my answer would be a big YES.