Mumbai - The "RG" City

My more recent experience of full-time RG was during my visit to Mumbai. This place can aptly be titled an "RG City". Every thing anyone does there is RG and the place stinks of it. Right from the local trains, where one's just interested in parking oneself onto that god-awful crowded monstrosity, to the autos and taxis and hotels and just about anything one can think of. Everyone's out there to cheat you, to relieve you of all your sensitivities if you were born with any. Its downright annoying, frustrating and irritating for one to stay and learn this way of living just to survive. You just cant afford to slip up in such a place, the people out there will end up feasting on your remains for dinner.

I pity those people who stay in such places where RGing is an accepted way of life. How can one live in a place where putting up a show 24/7 is a necessity to survive? How can one always be on one's guard to con others or to stay clear of getting conned? Unfortunate though it may seem, they seem supremely confident about their superiority over others and casually satisfied with this quality of life. Sometimes I wonder whether this is the future of the urban world. Maybe this is how its gonna be...

The most surpising observation for me is that everyone out there is satisfied with their sub-standard lives. One will never hear anyone complaining about the city, the people or the quality of their lives there. They will cover three-quarters of their city with garbage and dirt, and that's not even considering the people out there. They will wait in huge queues to catch a train which has a 50 square feet area littered with 100+ people and the occasional bomb-laden bag. They will pay more than twice the price for any service they seek which is clearly of better quality elsewhere. And still, they will pride themselves on being the so-called pioneers and blockbusters across the country in just about anything.

Then again, I'd tell you to visit Bangalore. I often got offended when people called it a "small-town". Not any more. I feel being in a small town is way better than wasting one's life in such a hell-hole. And when one spends a majority of one's life in such places, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to distinguish their real self from the fake one. I know that Bangalore's gonna get there, pretty soon, by the way things are going. But till it does, it still remains a haven.