Salaam Bombay! - Part 1 - Story of an Iced tea robbery.

A couple of years back, a trip to the cinemas, reset me and left me in a pleasant flashback mode. Mr Danny Boyle’s latest masterpiece- Slumdog Millionaire- with it’s clever sepia shots brought  back a lot of sinking memories of my two month stint in one of the busiest, craziest (in a good way!), and intoxicating places in the world- Mumbai…

I am sure a lot has been written, said, painted and even sung about this amazing place! So although I am itching to go on about the vibrancy, the buzz, the people, the colours and the love of this place…I am going to try and control it!

Just a few anecdotal incidents and the reflections (did anyone yawn ;-)!)

First let me introduce ‘the Mumbai power cut’ to you. From those of us from India, it is no big deal but to people from the richer parts of the world I better make it clear. So, it is two hours of no power, and that used to be in the middle of the day and it is so hot that if you spread raw rice on the ground, it would get cooked or even roasted in no time! Life went on, nothing stops- offices went on as usual, traffic remained the same, the street vendors took no notice, the house wives carried on with a hand fan…Mumbai kept flowing- with a chaotic calm!

However, I found the heat rather uncomfortable, perhaps because I knew there was a way out. And as it happened it worked out well for me and my partner (s) in crime...my dearest cousin-meet Miss R- the suave and sophisticated (need I say gorgeous!) modern day Mumbai girl!


It was R who suggested the escape route- trip to ‘The Mall’. A fully air-conditioned shopping centre, complete with a movie theatre and several food joints. Two hours fizzles out into the distance in no time in those Malls!


Having made the excuse of power cuts…we regularly haunted the Café Coffee Day( and I take this opportunity to salute one of the finest coffees I have had!)and drowned our melancholy of being hot and bothered, sipping Cappuchino in the cool air conditioned Café. One of those days, after our regular routine of a coffee, we decided to try the desi Subway in the mall. I was quite excited to in fact be able to have Subway after a long while and we ordered our regular subs, ate, cleaned and ordered our drinks to have on our way home- two iced teas.


A thing about iced tea is that - it is not everyone’s cup of tea!;-) And we found that soon enough, a few minutes later. With our take away transparent cups full of ice tea, we walk out of the Mall. Dazed by the mid-afternoon heat that hit us suddenly, we look for an auto rickshaw to take us back home as we had no intention of ruining the experience of having our ice teas by walking home. After standing for about 10 mins, we manage to hail an auto finally and get in half-baked and fed up with the heat(already!)


In our pursuit of hailing an auto (which by the way is a skill in that part of the world!), we had not noticed a group of street children who had been loitering around us. It is not an unusual sight in Mumbai , as you may know already if you watched Slumdog Millionaire.  There was nothing suspicious about them and when some of them approached me to seek alms, I politely dismissed them with a smile, as I have been told not to encourage begging for alms as the children are employed by the lobby and they don’t get anything out of it.

Every time I do decline though, my hearts sinks and feel bad for the child. I get into the auto with my cousin- I climb in first and sit nearer the window followed by Miss R.. Just as the auto starts up, a boy (one from the group of street children) of perhaps about 5-6 years of age, suddenly flashes near the window. Before I could even see him, or realise his presence, he snatches the cup of ice tea from my hands and runs it across the road into a traffic island with his mates.
Artic freeze made a guest appearance on my face!;-)
Dumbfounded, I made some noise which my cousin interpreted as ‘What the!’
Ice tea was not my concern…the way he did a Mission Impossible across the busy road, with cars screeching down to a halt, made my heart come to my mouth..and all for what – Iced tea!


In the state of shock too we could not help notice the auto driver, who carried on turning the rickshaw around as if nothing happened…detached from this world…the Yogi baba driver!;-)


As he turned the rickshaw around the traffic island, I looked at the little boy who mugged my drink. He took a sip…a moment passed…and he spat it all out with a  vengeance!!!


He could not understand, what had gone wrong! He shouted from the island looking at us…’Ye kaisa Cola he Didi! Aap kyon peeteh ho ye!’-


Translation: ‘What kind of Cola is this sister…why do you drink this disgusting thing?!’


I was amused beyond my wits! Getting mugged by a 6 year old and sympathetic words from the little mugger himself! This happens only in India. Mumbai just got more interesting for me!:-)

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