re-post: My beloved A2

Old wine bottles in the kitchen windowsill of our Bombay apt.

We moved from Bangalore to Bombay in February 2005 and after loving everything about Bangalore, I had a hard time settling into life in Bombay. My blog was a place of lots of rants from that time, thankfully not many people came to my blog those days and some of the rants have since been removed :-)

I was working after several years and I simply hated the commute, till I started traveling on the A2, which is the ac bus that travels through Lokhandwala to south Bombay along Linking Road. As someone who'd never used buses before, I was excited to do the Bombay thing and use public transport. The A2 stop was quite close to our apt in Tarapore Gardens in Lokhandwala and my workplace in Khar was right next to the stop as well, so it was quite perfect.

Here's the post I wrote on 13th May, 2005 as I was adjusting to the city of Bombay.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Initially, one of the worst things about living and working in Bombay was the terrible commute. So much time wasted each day going and coming, that could be used more productively. I used to dread the commute so much that it overtook my life and my job as well. I just could not deal with the crowds, the smells, the heat and the endless traffic.

The AC bus has been my savior. Now, I look forward to this part of my day, as it has become my reading time. Since I started traveling on the A2, I have been able to finish a book every 2 weeks. Its incredible how this turnaround happened. I love my 40 minutes of private reading time that I get each way to and from work. It is what makes me realize that after all the initial struggle, I too am beginning to balance and juggle home and work in this chaotic city.

Reading is my passion and not being able to read on a daily basis makes me cranky and irritable. My other passion, Crosswords, have not fared as well, as the roads are too bumpy and traffic too chaotic to do them.

I just finished reading a very interesting book called Ragtime in Simla by Barbara Cleverly. Its in the vein of MM Kaye's Murder in Kenya. Set in the 1920's, the events slowly unfold to tell the story of a murder that takes place on the road to Simla at Devil's Elbow, just after Tara Devi, where one gets the first sight of Simla. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the landmarks and buildings of Simla as I am familiar with them and it brought back lots of memories. The people of Simla, the culture, the levels of society, the importance of gossip to this town have come through well. Overall, a recommended read.