Mumbai Police Rocks!!

Sunday, December 14. Time: 2350 hours.
Two men get out of a taxi outside CST station. One of them is wearing a blue jacket and denims while the other is wearing a striped tee-shirt and denims. They leave the taxi and walk past a police van towards the station. They enter the station. One of them gestures to the other to move towards the toilet. He starts to move towards it. They both enter the toilet, the one behind asks if he should get some coffee. The first one nods in approval. Number 2 exits.

Number 1 proceeds to .....number 1. He finishes the formalities and walks out of the stinking room towards Number 2. Number 2 buys coffee, while Number 1 moves towards another stall to get a bottle of mineral water. He buys it and they both meet again.

Number 1 (wearing the blue jacket) touches his back and says to Number 2, "I think I left my bag in the taxi.'

I am Number 1. Number 2 is my friend Nishit. He asks me if I am sure. I tell him I am. I definitely had it with me in the cab, and now I don't. He asks me what was in the bag. A file, with my motor-cycle's original registration papers in it. DAMN!

Nishit jokes that the cabbie would be scared shit of a bag left behind. I say yeah. We walk out of CST station to the place we left the cab. The police van is still there. They see us walking around, looking here and there, and in these times, they are intrigued. They ask us what happened. We tell them. They ask us if we know the taxi number.

FLASHBACK: Why we are at CST in the first place. We have just dropped our friend to the Naval Base. At the entry of the base, we were stopped and asked for identification. Nishit and I didn't belong there while my friend had to make an entry at the gate about the taxi number. Taxi number. Taxi number.

BACK: I call my friend. I ask for the taxi number. I get it. I tell the cops, yes I know the taxi number. I tell them. Nishit corrects me. The last two digits aren't 35, they are 55, he says. So we tell the cops the corrected number. They ask us when we left the cab, 10 minutes back we say. They say they will broadcast it over the wireless! WHAT?

They take my phone number. They tell me to look for the cab myself also, while they broadcast it. I walk towards the out-station train area looking at and scrutinising every taxi with care. Can't find the one!

5 minutes. FIVE minutes. Yes, FIVE MINUTES, I get a call.
Caller: 'Are you Arpit Sharma?'
Me: 'Yes.'
Caller: 'Did you leave a bag behind in a cab?'
Me: 'Yes.'
Caller: 'Your bag is at Colaba Police Station. Go and collect it.'
Me: 'Thank you.' (Still shocked).

I call Nishit, find him and we take a cab to the police station. I walk in. I see a police man with my bag. I see the cab driver who dropped us to CST. We complete the formalities, they just take my name, number, address, telephone number, my dad's name. They do the same with the cabbie. All done, I walk out with my bag.

We take the same cab to CST again. We ask the cabbie what happened.

CABBIE VERSION: I left you at VT. And from there I went to Regal. I parked behind Regal. There was a cab standing behind me. A passenger got into it and it left. I saw a police wireless van enter the lane from the no-entry side. I was a little curious as to what is happening. By this time I was out of my taxi and standing. They cops came to me.
They: 'Is it your cab.'
Me: 'Yes.'
They: 'What is inside?'
Me: 'Nothing.'
They: 'Are you sure. Isn't there a bag inside?'
Me: 'No Sir. You can check.'

They check and find the bag. They brought me to the police station.

I have my bag back with all the documents intact. We get down at CST, pay him, Thank him. We walk to the police van and thank the cops there. They ask me if I have everything. I say I do. They say The police got it for you didn't they?

Mumbai Attacked - 26-November-2008

As Mumbai stays awake watching TV and hoping that the current crisis situation ends, I realise that a lot of people have a lot of resentment, and the words 'Just kill all those bad guys' are resounding in a lot of heads. At a certain time, I honestly thought the same thing. And then I was reminded of this interview on Larry King Live of a certain Iraqi guy. He said something along these lines...

"If I get into your house and shoot your child, and rape your wife and blow up everything you own, kill all your relatives, what will you want to do?'"

Larry King replied "I would retaliate".

To which the man said "So why don't you understand if I want to retaliate."

He was talking about the situation in Iraq obviously, something that we get informed about mostly through American News Agencies. But if I want to kill these guys who are in Taj now, and if someone identifies this sentiment in me, and brainwashes me, wouldnt I also turn into one of these guys?

What is causing this sentiment? This hatred towards everything? We don't know everything, honestly, we make most of our judgements based on half truths. God save us!

I'm a survivor!

I can feel goosebumps on my back and hands as I write this.

A very very weird thing happened yesterday. After having spent a tiring day auditioning here and there, and a visit to my grandparents, and a little run behind a Best Bus, I was at a friends place chilling out. We were getting ready to watch a movie, my friend (looking at how amazingly tired I looked) suggested that I bathe. My eyes WERE kinda droopy so I thought it was a good idea too. In I went to the bathroom to take a bath. Didn't use the shower, used water from buckets. Well I am not going to tell you too much more about my bath, but midway through it, I raised my hand above my head and I heard something BURST! And then....there was darkness.

My friend's bathroom doesn't have a very high ceiling. It is probably 4-5 inches beyond my head. And the light-bulb holder on the side wall is pretty much on my forehead height. And being a Mumbai house, it is not huge....it is rented. So in this small bathroom with a low ceiling, when I raised my hand...sorry...my very wet hand...I accidentally touched the bulb I guess....and yeah...the bulb was naked too.

Back to the darkness. So there I stood, shocked...wet...and with soap on my body as the last bits of the glass fell to the floor. I was really numb. And then I felt a sharp sensation on my left shoulder. It was really freaky. I thought a glass piece had entered my shoulder, like shrapnel. It stung. I draped a towel around me and opened the door without moving my feet. From the light outside I looked at my shoulder. I felt it and luckily there was no glass on it. The bulb had burst behind my back and I was now worried if my back had pieces of glass sticking into it...or worse...my head!!! What if when they came out.....well you know....

My friend came over to me almost as shocked as I was. We checked my back and hair, and thankfully there were no glass pieces on me. Which is really cool, coz the bulb was really not that far away and when I looked at the bathroom, there was glass pretty much everywhere on the floor. Jesus. The thing on the shoulder? That's a burn. I don't know how, must have been a really small glass piece. It turned white in no time...and right now it is deep brown. I like it. I think it is cool, but I can't help but shudder when I think of what more it could have been. Really scary. Gifting my friend one of those tube light style illuminators. The ones that probably wont burst. eewwww. Goosebumps again.

Ye hai Mumbai Meri Jaan

An interesting thing happened this past Monday. I was on my way to my evening seminar for the Landmark Forum (Please google Landmark education). I have to be at Churchgate at 7 pm, so I leave my place in Andheri at 530. I take the MIDC route which means I shouldnt encounter traffic and needless to say I get lots of it. There is this one turn where every one just wants to block the other guy, so eventually no one gets through without losing a lot of time, and a lot of his mind. Took me 25 minutes to get out of that jam. Reached Andheri station, bought coupons and was on my way to the platform, when I saw my 6.05 fast local departing. I would have made it to the train had it not been for these amazing ladies who were taking a leisurely stroll through the park albeit down the platform steps.

The train left by the time i reached the station. So i waited for the next one which was to come by 6.14. Mumbai. Train isnt there till 6.20. And in the meantime they pass a passenger mail on this track. So eventually there are scores of people waiting for the 6.14 train. Scores! train arrives at 6.27, and there is a crazy rush to get into it. As I tried my bit to get into an already fast filling train, i suddenly felt my right foot very bare. The chappal on my right foot was off. Great. People who know Mumbai locals will understand why I didnt try to turn around to find it. For people who dont, I would have died in the stampede if I did. So I just smiled to myself and hobbling on my bare foot just about managed to stand. I should mention here that the train floor was bloody warm.

I reached Churchgate and with one chappal on one foot and walking in that weird fashion went to the stalls in the subway. Thankfully there was one store which sold chappals and I got my self a new pair for 100 bucks. I went for my seminar. I couldnt get my mind off the chappal that had fallen because it was a gift from someone, and I liked them as well. So i made up my mind. I was gonna get back to the station and search for them.

I got back to Andheri station at 1130pm. As I had decided I went down to the same platform, and started retracing my steps from 5 hours ago. There was an empty train standing at the tracks so I couldnt search the tracks. I waited for 10 minutes for the train to depart to the yard. When it left there was an announcement than another fast train was expected on the same tracks. Frantically I started looking at the tracks. Lo and Behold, there it was. Lying face down on the side of the tracks. I made sure that there was no train coming to kill me, jumped onto the tracks and retrieved my chappal. I removed the new ones that I had bought. got the old lonely one from my bag and wore my original chappals again, and I can tell you....I was crazy happy!

For people who want to know how I got my chappal back, please watch / read The Secret!!!!