Vini Vidi…Journey to Mumbai

Try and avoid Air Deccan atleast till they sort out their scheduling on winter flights. They sent me 3 sms on the 12th and one on the 11th. The first stated that my flight was rescheduled to 950 AM (never mind the fact that my flight was actually at 950 AM!) and then the next 3 progressively stated that my flight was rescheduled to a different time 4 hrs later, etc and then finally cancelled! I had the option of either waiting to take their next flight at 5 pm or stop being at their mercy. Thank god for free markets. Jet Airways has 8 flights to Mumbai daily from Bangalore. After some initial panic about whether my vacation could go waste, I moved to Jet and cancelled even my return flight by Air Deccan. Note that I had booked 45 days in advance. So much for discount fares. And I paid just 500 bucks more. And you do get free food, water and coffee, as much as you want.

Like I have said before, auto drivers are an integral part of my travelogues. After getting down at Mumbai airport and taking detailed instructions from a friend, I took an auto. I asked the driver what it would cost to reach a place in Bandra, from where I could take a rick To Whom It May concern Prabha Devi. He said that it should take about 50 bucks, but he wanted 20 bucks more. I had already haggled with 3 other auto guys who were not on with my proposal for jut 10 over the meter. They felt that standing in the prepaid line for over 2 hrs justified a premium. Anyways, my driver took some unfamiliar routes and about 5 minutes later, we found ourselves opposite Vile Parle station. When I asked him what we were doing there, since Vile Parle wasn’t exactly Bandra, he said that I had said I would not pay above 10! Then after a violent outburst from my incredulous self, we took off again and this time, my driver dropped me off at the bottom of a flyover in Bandra. We moved on and then took a taxi to Prabha Devi where our dear friend Ravikiran who had a large role to play in this trip, had keys to the house.

First thing was to get some filter coffee. So we went to neighbourhood hotel to grab some coffee. How are we supposed to live otherwise?! It cost Rs 7. About an hr later, we thought we will try out the coffee at one of those neighbourhood stalls which mainly serves taxi drivers. I would have expected tastier and cheaper stuff. But then the owner turned out some stuff worthy of being spat out for Rs 6! Besides the vile thing he called NesCoffee was just milk mixed with a Re 1 sachet. Sometime it helps to be conservative.

We had planned to do a practice run on the Worli seaface in the night, but our buddy was under the pressure of a usual weekday at the office. So we took off next morning from the beginning of Marine Drive till Haji Ali. Took about 38 mins. Considering that we ran the first two at a deliberately slower pace than usual (since our host was also running with us) we thought we were in good shape to take on Peddar Road on Sunday.

Did another practice run all by myself on Saturday, on the Worli seaface taking about 9 mins 23 sec for the 2 km stretch. Good we thought. We also gorged on some superhuman banana with cream stuff sold at the Haji Ali juice stall. Quite expensive at Rs 90, but almost like Jet Airways. Real Good.

We were also treated to some assorted entertainment and inspiration at the place of another friend who seems to have been cruelly separated from us in the Kumbh Mela. Watched Chariots of Fire for the nth time. In the movie, the woman who Harold Abrahams is smitten with, utters some unforgettable lines. HA after losing to Eric Liddel says, that he doesn’t want to run, if he can’t win. She counters him saying that you cant win if you don’t run! We shall come back to this in our next blog. Managed to go to the CrossWord at Shivaji Park and read Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong in one sitting. When you need adrenalin, read the book. The LLB above also gifted us a LIVESTRONG band. So we are now feeling warm, yellow and fuzzy. Now,that reminds me of a tennis ball! Hey now, that is not what I meant to say... Whatever!

I had planned to wear a bandanna with a message dedicated to Manju during my run. Almost didn’t do so, since we didn’t get paint in time. Finally in the night, we stopped by a shop (Welcome Stationery in Worli, which is open at 10 pm in the night). Thank God for the city that never sleeps.

The good man known as Ravikiran painted my bandanna for me and we were done.

All set for the run on Sunday.