Road to somewhere

Illustration/Uday Mohite

I've been a born and bred SoBo resident for years, and even though I essentially work in Juhu/Bandra, I will always have a SoBo ‘"chhaap" - at least for my NoBo brethren. NoBo-ites have this "ungli" thing for their SoBo neighbours, "Oh wow you've come to the ‘burbs', had to get a visa, huh?' (chuckle chuckle).

Recently I invested in a Schengen visa - what's a Schengen visa, you will ask? It's a visa that allows me entry through all "toll nakas" and free passage to all of Mumbai's highways- Western Express, Eastern Express, Pune Expressway.

With this, I also get an add on H1B1 visa - this is a visa that allows me to visit any chiropacter to inspect/cure my sore/injury ridden back (B1) after travel on any of the above mentioned pot-holed highways (H1).

On another note, dear reader, I don't ever want to be that old fashioned guy who moans, "You know when Mumbai was Bombay" or sighs, "In the old days when…", but I have to confess, if we could wind the clock back, I'd ask to return to me my clear sea-view, from the Dhobi Talao bridge to the Sea Link - yeah yeah yeah I know that all this modern infra is for quicker travel, but now, as you pass the Haji Ali Dargah, the horizon feels like a wannabe Shanghai cum Marvel Universe, spiralling highways leading us into the sky.

"Yaar Rahul, you're so sadly retro, think big, you can get from Worli to Marine Drive in ten mins flat," I am told. (I have to wait another couple of months to get from Marine Drive to Worli, just saying, but I get the point).

So last evening I thought I'd experiment - I must take the newly opened Coastal Road, I said to myself… after all, from Worli sea face to Islam Gymkhana in ten minutes, is quite something.

However I was hit by a bevy of signposts on my trek back to ‘town' - ‘Taraporewalla Aquarium' one sign board read - a kindly official advised, ‘Yeh raasta ready nahi hai, bhau… yeh seeda dariya main jayega," which seemed reasonable enough, considering it's "watching sea life" that the aquarium offers.

A second board read, "Bachelors" - wow, I thought to myself, this is amazing on the part of the BMC… they are segregating between "married people" and "unmarried people". I flagged down another kindly looking official - I asked him, "Saheb, main ‘single status' hoon, allowed hai na?"

"Haan sir, no problem, but yeh ‘Bachelors Juice Centre', Chowpatty ke paas bahar ayega - completion 2027 mein!"

This was proving to be a difficult return home.

I came upon a road name, I was trying to grasp. "Dharmaveer Swarajya Rakshak Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj Marg" - the reading of this name alone took me twenty minutes.

But I felt a little more assured when I read a placard that said ‘NCPA'… yay, I said to myself, this I do know… the National Centre for the Performing Arts… maybe I can catch a concert or some stand-up. And so I gleefully took that highway… ohh lalala... it was wonderful driving high above the sea, but I was confused when I found myself not going past the Nehru Planetarium or Kanchenjunga or the Ambani Antilla. So I stopped and asked an octroi man - "Bhai saab yeh road ‘NCPA' jaata hai, na?"

"Haan saab, NCPA - Nalasopara Chunabhatti Panvel Airoli... naya highway straight aap Goa bhi poch sakhta hai…aapka Schengen visa dikhao please?"

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com