And so I accepted the job and thus, began my journey. From Aamchi Mumbai, mother in 3 languages: Mum + Ba (Gujarati) + Aai (Marathi) to land-forcibly-seized-from-farmers, hot-headed-men-carrying-guns, don’t-go-out-at-night-or-you’ll-get-raped-(doesn’t-matter-if-you’re-a-boy-or-girl), Yo-Yo-Honey Singh-@-Dandiya, etc city: Gurgaon, popularly known as Delhi outside Delhi and Gurgaon. Being born and bred in Mumbai, migrating here involved witnessing a paradigm shift in culture. Having imbibed policies from my line of career, I shall start out with positive points and then euphemistically crawl onto the unpleasant ones.

    With this exhaustive list, I would delightfully pounce onto the more interesting part. The lack of public transport within the city leaves you handicapped at times. The fare for non-meter driven auto rickshaws starts with per km cost equivalent to that of a space shuttle and ends at Rs. 10 more than what you are willing to pay. While in Mumbai, cursing and posing rhetorical questions to rickshaw drivers was one of my favorite pass-times, you wouldn’t want to do that in Gurgaon lest someone pulls out a shotgun and shoots you in the face at point blank range with fountains of blood oozing out of your skull, eye-balls dangling out of their sockets, grey gooey matter dripping down your forehead etc. I recall one such incidence in Mumbai when I was with my dear friend Damle. They were bickering over Re. 1. It’s never about the money you see but about the principle. At last the driver retorted, "Ek rupaiya se mahal bana lega kya?" (Will you build a castle with one rupee?) to which Damle, in his highly conspicuous Marathi accent replied, “Toh kya tu bana lega?” (So what, you are gonna build?). And there was a long awkward silence.

    Not just the rickshaws but even the inter-city buses amuse you. As tech-savvy dudes (read nerds), we proudly booked tickets online only to realize we could have just reached the station and bargained in loud incoherent statements to save some bucks. Ironically, the same thing happened even at a posh club like Blue Frog! Nevertheless, we got into shabby “Indian-looking” bus which was submerged in chaos with travel agents fighting, women chattering, men heaving around with over-sized suitcases and the children, as usual, crying their lungs out. After an hour of this torture which made my ears and brain numb, the bus finally departed. I was shocked that the same crowd which quarrels over a frivolous issue like number of ice-cubes in soft drink was indifferent to the delay in departure.

    Having learnt the lesson, next time we directly went to the bus station. We even bargained in loud incoherent statements to get seats in a swanky AC bus. Our chest which was swollen with pride received a nice thump within seconds of departure. The bus had no shock-absorbers. And just when you think it can’t get worse, God unleashes His next prank while shouting out loud in a shrill voice, “Now take this sucker”. It’s the advent of “Complaining Oldie Paradox”. An old guy boards the bus and while he himself is the cause of complain, he curses everything else around. It seemed he had memorized an array of invectives which he blabbered in an infinite loop. At one point, I could hear air-borne bacteria sobbing because of this nuisance. Even in Delhi’s city bus, the conductor who was super-glued to his seat took Gowarikar movie-ish time to dole out the tickets.

    Another peculiar phenomenon is the crying baby syndrome. It’s an established fact that whenever you travel, there is always a crying baby in your audible radius. Gurgaon goes a step further and you are bombarded by kids everywhere. With malls and multiplexes being the only source of “entertainment”, probably parents must be bringing them back there to show where they were conceived.

    And suddenly out of nowhere, just like its mention in the blog here, winter sneaks upon you. It’s so cold that even boiling water is freezing. There’s fog everywhere, not just in the air but also exuding out of every possible hole in your body. I imagine a wedding night in Delhi winter. It would be like an onion married to a cabbage. The entire night would be spent removing layers after layers!

  All said and done, to keep in tone with the blog’s title, it has been a fun-ride so far with of course some trials and tribulations. Company of good friends, occasional trips, experience of living independently and obviously earning (spending) money have been catalysts in extricating home (Mumbai)-sickness. And eventually, you adapt to the “work and weekend” life!