“What should we do on the night of New Years Eve?” - asked my better half. Having an almost unhealthy hobbitlike disposition to avoid adventures and travels, my standard answer would have been - stay home, watch a movie, have dinner and exit to slumberland... Yup, uninteresting and totally drab it may sound, buts that's my version of an ideal New Years Eve celebration. But alas. My better half had other thoughts. And a newly wed husband has no say in such matters. So it came to pass that we found ourselves boarding the train to Churchgate at 10:15 pm after having dinner at home...
I have personally had ambivalent experiences visiting public places on New Years Eves in the past... Even my colleagues, watching me wind up my work earlier than usual (no small feat, I tell you), suggested that we spend our evening indoors. Everyone who has ever been out on New Years Eve in Mumbai, including me, will tell you that it is not always a fun experience. Every Tom, Dick and Harry, their families, friends, uncles, neighbours, drunkards, eve-teasers, party-animals, policemen , beggars, hawkers - all are out to have a time of their lives. There are not many places in Mumbai that afford free and open space for people to gather and look for entertainment and time-pass. There is the Juhu Beach, Marine Drive, the Gateway of India and of course the Malls. Though what kind of entertainment people derive by visiting these crowded places and just sitting, chatting, staring at each other - and not really doing anything in particular, is something that has always escaped me. But alas. My wife had never experienced an evening out on 31st. And for her sake we decided to visit the Marine Lines - the Queen's Necklace as it is fondly referred to by Mumbaikars - a beautiful curved stretch of seaface-hugging road running from Churchgate to Girgaon Chowpatty beach at Charni Road. It has a wide sea facing boulevard where, on less crowded days, one can sit and enjoy the sea, the breeze, the curved street lights that make up the pearls of the queen's necklace and the hubbub of South Mumbai's busy life.
I have been there on a New Years Eve before. And I cannot say I found the experience entirely thrilling. But considering the other options, this was the best I could think of.
There was a long queue for the tickets - an unusual phenomenon at this time on a normal day. Obviously we were not the only ones venturing out tonight. Trains were running late. We got to board a train at about 10:15 pm. We were already late. So we switched to a Fast train at Andheri. The train was moderately crowded. There were quite a few couples - an unusual sight had it been a regular working day. We got a seat, albeit after a few stations.
We finally stepped out on the Churchgate railway station at 11:20 pm. A short walk westward would get us to the famed Queen's Necklace. The footpath was quite crowded. Decorations and hungry crowds hung outside a few restaurants. I guess they would stay open quite late into the night today. Hawkers were selling samosas, kulfi, tea, bottled water (how genuine, I wonder?), fancy head-dresses with illuminated horns or artificial flowers, heart balloons, little fancy shrill whistles, Santa hats and God knows what not - at exorbitant prices. And people were buying. Ironic - ask people to do some charity, or pay wages for hard work done by labourers, or pay the fees of professionals like CAs and Doctors, and their pockets become so deep that they can't seem to find enough money. But they have no qualms when shelling out for such entertaining useless trinkets...
Another cynical observation: People are generally obnoxious, however well dresses they may be. Right in front of us was a guy. He was smartly dressed in blazers and jeans and nice woodland shoes. And suddenly he turns and spits out. Right there at the edge of the footpath. A little distance ahead, he stopped again and emptied the contents of his nose, first from one nostril and then from the other. Again right there on the footpath. And here we blame the less educated and the poor for littering our city...
When we reached the Marine Drive road, the sight was overwhelming. There was a huge torrential river of vehicles. Mumbai is full of "horn"y people. Drivers were honking away to their heart's content. Traffic cops were trying in vain to control it. Never seen so much traffic on this road, even on working days at peak hours. Beyond the traffic river was the sea of human beings that nearly blocked the view of the actual sea beyond. The crowd was certainly stronger in numbers than the last time I visited here on New Year's Eve.
We crossed the road and became a part of this moving seething mass of humanity. There were families, friends, couples, old people, kids, hawkers... There were people strolling aimlessly, groups and loners sitting over the ledge and on few available benches. There were photography enthusiasts with huge cameras - some set up on tripods. And there were the amateur photographers using their mobile phone to capture this slice of time that will soon become a part of the year past... So many people were taking selfies and groupies, confirming my cynical belief that Selfitis is now more prevalent and more contagious than flu, common cold and AIDS.
I was a bit concerned for my wife. It is no hidden fact that New Year's Eve revelers include groups of guys high on testosterone, alcohol and party-mood. A lot of people were constantly moving around. Obnoxiously noisy groups of young bucks passed us every now and then. When in a group, it is just a small step from being a gentleman to being a hooligan. But fortunately nothing untoward happened.
There were policemen standing on a small machan temporarily put up on the boulevard for the occasion. It must have been a nightmare for them - for such a huge crowd at a public place is a security disaster waiting to happen. These are the men who sacrifice their New Year's Eve so that we can safely enjoy ours.
There was no space to sit. The ledge that runs all along the Marine Drive was jam packed with revelers. Our original plan was to take a long walk along the boulevard all the way to Girgaon Chowpatty. But it was so crowded that we decided to stay put. For a while we just ambled around.
It’s been a cold winter this year. There was a cool soothing breeze from the sea. It would have been quite pleasant if not for the crowd and the noise. People were chatting, shouting, blowing whistles, playing music on portable speakers and adding to the ambient ever-present ruckus of blaring horns and traffic.
With no place to sit and create a virtual bubble of our own private world, I was not sure how we were going to make the evening enjoyable. There was a Naturals ice cream shop on the other side of the street. We contemplated going in there, only to be disheartened by the very long queue of people waiting outside it. Then I spotted something interesting. To the north, where the sea met the Marine Drive near the Marine Lines station, there were lights in the sky. Small luminescent blobs of phantom light floating over the sea, moving seaward, away from all the din and the festivities, riding the wind currents. For a while I was not sure what to make of them... Then suddenly I realized... They were Floating Lanterns! What people call Chinese Lanterns. Unknown in this part of the world until recently when they started appearing during Diwali, sold by hawkers near traffic signals... They looked so beautiful floating up there over the sea...
As we watched awestruck, more and more lanterns began appearing over the Marine Drive area... Rising up in ones and twos even as their earlier airborne kin dwindled and faded away as they fell into the sea... To augment this display of floating lights, there were the fire crackers that lighted up the sky every now and then - streaks of light that would race upward with a whoosh, only to explode into hundreds of tiny twinkling bright pinpoints of light... And all this added to the already beautiful dazzling view of the Queen's Necklace - the little dots of hundreds of headlights, the pearly bright street lights and the brightly illuminated building of the Saifee Hospital far to the north near Charni Road station - its illuminated body reflecting in the sea... We found a very small space to stand over the ledge, among the thick crowd. And even without realizing it, we had finally found our little private bubble - as we both stood so near, holding each other, enjoying the virtual intimacy and the beautiful display in front of us...
Every now and then our bubble would get disturbed by the hollering and the shrill whistles of groups of young lads intoxicated by the festive mood... But by and large, we were mostly left alone - in our own little cocoon surrounded by so many other cocoons of groups of friends and families.
As we stood there on the ledge and watched the celestial spectacle, I felt someone tug urgently at the bottle of water that I was holding in my hand. I had bought it at a Railway stall and it was half empty. I looked down at the guy sitting on the ledge besides where we were standing. He had now stopped pulling at the bottle and was looking at it hungrily. The light was too dim and at first I thought it must be a beggar or, even worse, some drunkard... But then the guy looked up and our eyes met. He was an old man, frail, with white tufts of hair on a balding head. He wore spectacles and well worn old clothes that would never pass as the latest and the best in fashion, but looked decent enough. For a while I looked into his eyes - there was request there, and dignity enough to not let that request turn into pleading. I offered him the bottle. He uncorked it and gulped down a healthy portion of the water. He must have been really very thirsty. While he drank to his fill I looked around for whoever was accompanying him. Apparently he was alone. He handed me back the bottle with thankful eyes. Not a word passed between us. And yet as I retreated back into our own cocoon, I couldn't help but think about the lonely old man and wonder what he was doing alone out so late on a night like this...
The floating lanterns idea quickly went viral. Where there were just 5 - 10 lanterns floating over the sea, now there were nearly 50 - 60 blobs of light adorning the sky above as more and more lanterns took flight... It was as if the Mumbaikars were sending up their wishes, their dreams, their aspirations for the year to come. As is the way with the real wishes and dreams, some of them unfortunately crashed straight into the sea. While some of them, full of hot air of hope and enthusiasm, shot straight into the sky. And like most dreams and aspirations, many of them started off slowly, tentatively - at first moving downwards towards the sea, looking as if they would never be able to take flight, and instead would succumb to the realities of life and crash into the sea... But slowly and surely they would start ascending, riding the winds of hope with renewed energy as they endeavoured to ambitiously touch the sky. I think this is what makes this majestic sprawling hatefully overcrowded city so attractive. The dreams and hopes and aspirations of millions of Mumbaikars that lights up its landscape daily as we all crash and burn to fulfill our dreams here...
I had an opportunity to observe some of the floating lanterns as groups of people nearby bought them and tried to send them floating away. Basically they are made up of an elongated dome of something that looked like thin butter paper. At the base of the dome is a small round frame. At the center of the frame is what looks like a block of candle wax with a small wick. One needs to set the wick alight and hold the lantern for a while. As the air inside the dome heats up, you let go and the lantern will lift up powered by the hot air. Just like a hot air balloon. It was very pretty to watch them first falter and then, as the crowd cheered them onward, and the air inside the dome got hot enough, they would gracefully lift off into the night... But I wondered what would happen after they fizzled out and dropped into the sea... Imagine all of them littering the sea surface... That's the price we pay for our festivities, I guess...
We were so engrossed in the display that for a while we didn't comprehend what happened as the crowd began to cheer and shout louder than ever... Then my wife looked at her watch and said "Happy New Year, dear"... And just like that, without even realizing it, we had left behind 2015 and had ventured forth with the first tentative temporal footsteps into a whole new year...
We stood around for a while still enjoying the lanterns and the few fireworks that continued to light up the new sky... The festivities didn't show any signs of abating. I guess they would continue all the way till dawn. We finally bade farewell to Marine Drive and made our way back to the Churchgate station.
The 12:43 pm train to Bandra was about to leave. We had to go beyond that. So we waited and boarded the 12:50 Virar slow train. An extremely rare occasion in both our lives - boarding a local train so late in the night. It was fairly crowded. For, though quite a few people continued to enjoy the night, many, like us, had decided to call it quits. At least my wife got a seat, thanks to a Muslim gentleman who vacated it at my behest. It was pretty difficult to get down at Goregaon - thanks to the fools who like standing at the door risking their life in order to enjoy the wind... I exchanged angry words with some of them. But that was not the last quarrel I would be having that night.
There was a lone rickshaw outside the station. And the driver refused to take us in. I was already riding high on anger and adrenaline. I stood right in front of his vehicle and refused to budge. I started shouting for the cops. A havaldar standing near the railway police chowky quickly came to our aid. The police, it seems, were doing great work tonight. The hawaldar took down my wife's name and number (this was specifically for safety of women, he claimed), the registration number of the rick, and the name and number of the driver. Then he scolded the driver and ordered him to take us safely to our destination...
We finally arrived home at 1:45 pm. On the whole it had been a nice evening with a few good memories to cherish. And so we slept and dreamt our first dreams of the New Year 2016...
I have personally had ambivalent experiences visiting public places on New Years Eves in the past... Even my colleagues, watching me wind up my work earlier than usual (no small feat, I tell you), suggested that we spend our evening indoors. Everyone who has ever been out on New Years Eve in Mumbai, including me, will tell you that it is not always a fun experience. Every Tom, Dick and Harry, their families, friends, uncles, neighbours, drunkards, eve-teasers, party-animals, policemen , beggars, hawkers - all are out to have a time of their lives. There are not many places in Mumbai that afford free and open space for people to gather and look for entertainment and time-pass. There is the Juhu Beach, Marine Drive, the Gateway of India and of course the Malls. Though what kind of entertainment people derive by visiting these crowded places and just sitting, chatting, staring at each other - and not really doing anything in particular, is something that has always escaped me. But alas. My wife had never experienced an evening out on 31st. And for her sake we decided to visit the Marine Lines - the Queen's Necklace as it is fondly referred to by Mumbaikars - a beautiful curved stretch of seaface-hugging road running from Churchgate to Girgaon Chowpatty beach at Charni Road. It has a wide sea facing boulevard where, on less crowded days, one can sit and enjoy the sea, the breeze, the curved street lights that make up the pearls of the queen's necklace and the hubbub of South Mumbai's busy life.
I have been there on a New Years Eve before. And I cannot say I found the experience entirely thrilling. But considering the other options, this was the best I could think of.
There was a long queue for the tickets - an unusual phenomenon at this time on a normal day. Obviously we were not the only ones venturing out tonight. Trains were running late. We got to board a train at about 10:15 pm. We were already late. So we switched to a Fast train at Andheri. The train was moderately crowded. There were quite a few couples - an unusual sight had it been a regular working day. We got a seat, albeit after a few stations.
We finally stepped out on the Churchgate railway station at 11:20 pm. A short walk westward would get us to the famed Queen's Necklace. The footpath was quite crowded. Decorations and hungry crowds hung outside a few restaurants. I guess they would stay open quite late into the night today. Hawkers were selling samosas, kulfi, tea, bottled water (how genuine, I wonder?), fancy head-dresses with illuminated horns or artificial flowers, heart balloons, little fancy shrill whistles, Santa hats and God knows what not - at exorbitant prices. And people were buying. Ironic - ask people to do some charity, or pay wages for hard work done by labourers, or pay the fees of professionals like CAs and Doctors, and their pockets become so deep that they can't seem to find enough money. But they have no qualms when shelling out for such entertaining useless trinkets...
Another cynical observation: People are generally obnoxious, however well dresses they may be. Right in front of us was a guy. He was smartly dressed in blazers and jeans and nice woodland shoes. And suddenly he turns and spits out. Right there at the edge of the footpath. A little distance ahead, he stopped again and emptied the contents of his nose, first from one nostril and then from the other. Again right there on the footpath. And here we blame the less educated and the poor for littering our city...
When we reached the Marine Drive road, the sight was overwhelming. There was a huge torrential river of vehicles. Mumbai is full of "horn"y people. Drivers were honking away to their heart's content. Traffic cops were trying in vain to control it. Never seen so much traffic on this road, even on working days at peak hours. Beyond the traffic river was the sea of human beings that nearly blocked the view of the actual sea beyond. The crowd was certainly stronger in numbers than the last time I visited here on New Year's Eve.
We crossed the road and became a part of this moving seething mass of humanity. There were families, friends, couples, old people, kids, hawkers... There were people strolling aimlessly, groups and loners sitting over the ledge and on few available benches. There were photography enthusiasts with huge cameras - some set up on tripods. And there were the amateur photographers using their mobile phone to capture this slice of time that will soon become a part of the year past... So many people were taking selfies and groupies, confirming my cynical belief that Selfitis is now more prevalent and more contagious than flu, common cold and AIDS.
I was a bit concerned for my wife. It is no hidden fact that New Year's Eve revelers include groups of guys high on testosterone, alcohol and party-mood. A lot of people were constantly moving around. Obnoxiously noisy groups of young bucks passed us every now and then. When in a group, it is just a small step from being a gentleman to being a hooligan. But fortunately nothing untoward happened.
There were policemen standing on a small machan temporarily put up on the boulevard for the occasion. It must have been a nightmare for them - for such a huge crowd at a public place is a security disaster waiting to happen. These are the men who sacrifice their New Year's Eve so that we can safely enjoy ours.
There was no space to sit. The ledge that runs all along the Marine Drive was jam packed with revelers. Our original plan was to take a long walk along the boulevard all the way to Girgaon Chowpatty. But it was so crowded that we decided to stay put. For a while we just ambled around.
It’s been a cold winter this year. There was a cool soothing breeze from the sea. It would have been quite pleasant if not for the crowd and the noise. People were chatting, shouting, blowing whistles, playing music on portable speakers and adding to the ambient ever-present ruckus of blaring horns and traffic.
With no place to sit and create a virtual bubble of our own private world, I was not sure how we were going to make the evening enjoyable. There was a Naturals ice cream shop on the other side of the street. We contemplated going in there, only to be disheartened by the very long queue of people waiting outside it. Then I spotted something interesting. To the north, where the sea met the Marine Drive near the Marine Lines station, there were lights in the sky. Small luminescent blobs of phantom light floating over the sea, moving seaward, away from all the din and the festivities, riding the wind currents. For a while I was not sure what to make of them... Then suddenly I realized... They were Floating Lanterns! What people call Chinese Lanterns. Unknown in this part of the world until recently when they started appearing during Diwali, sold by hawkers near traffic signals... They looked so beautiful floating up there over the sea...
As we watched awestruck, more and more lanterns began appearing over the Marine Drive area... Rising up in ones and twos even as their earlier airborne kin dwindled and faded away as they fell into the sea... To augment this display of floating lights, there were the fire crackers that lighted up the sky every now and then - streaks of light that would race upward with a whoosh, only to explode into hundreds of tiny twinkling bright pinpoints of light... And all this added to the already beautiful dazzling view of the Queen's Necklace - the little dots of hundreds of headlights, the pearly bright street lights and the brightly illuminated building of the Saifee Hospital far to the north near Charni Road station - its illuminated body reflecting in the sea... We found a very small space to stand over the ledge, among the thick crowd. And even without realizing it, we had finally found our little private bubble - as we both stood so near, holding each other, enjoying the virtual intimacy and the beautiful display in front of us...
Every now and then our bubble would get disturbed by the hollering and the shrill whistles of groups of young lads intoxicated by the festive mood... But by and large, we were mostly left alone - in our own little cocoon surrounded by so many other cocoons of groups of friends and families.
As we stood there on the ledge and watched the celestial spectacle, I felt someone tug urgently at the bottle of water that I was holding in my hand. I had bought it at a Railway stall and it was half empty. I looked down at the guy sitting on the ledge besides where we were standing. He had now stopped pulling at the bottle and was looking at it hungrily. The light was too dim and at first I thought it must be a beggar or, even worse, some drunkard... But then the guy looked up and our eyes met. He was an old man, frail, with white tufts of hair on a balding head. He wore spectacles and well worn old clothes that would never pass as the latest and the best in fashion, but looked decent enough. For a while I looked into his eyes - there was request there, and dignity enough to not let that request turn into pleading. I offered him the bottle. He uncorked it and gulped down a healthy portion of the water. He must have been really very thirsty. While he drank to his fill I looked around for whoever was accompanying him. Apparently he was alone. He handed me back the bottle with thankful eyes. Not a word passed between us. And yet as I retreated back into our own cocoon, I couldn't help but think about the lonely old man and wonder what he was doing alone out so late on a night like this...
The floating lanterns idea quickly went viral. Where there were just 5 - 10 lanterns floating over the sea, now there were nearly 50 - 60 blobs of light adorning the sky above as more and more lanterns took flight... It was as if the Mumbaikars were sending up their wishes, their dreams, their aspirations for the year to come. As is the way with the real wishes and dreams, some of them unfortunately crashed straight into the sea. While some of them, full of hot air of hope and enthusiasm, shot straight into the sky. And like most dreams and aspirations, many of them started off slowly, tentatively - at first moving downwards towards the sea, looking as if they would never be able to take flight, and instead would succumb to the realities of life and crash into the sea... But slowly and surely they would start ascending, riding the winds of hope with renewed energy as they endeavoured to ambitiously touch the sky. I think this is what makes this majestic sprawling hatefully overcrowded city so attractive. The dreams and hopes and aspirations of millions of Mumbaikars that lights up its landscape daily as we all crash and burn to fulfill our dreams here...
I had an opportunity to observe some of the floating lanterns as groups of people nearby bought them and tried to send them floating away. Basically they are made up of an elongated dome of something that looked like thin butter paper. At the base of the dome is a small round frame. At the center of the frame is what looks like a block of candle wax with a small wick. One needs to set the wick alight and hold the lantern for a while. As the air inside the dome heats up, you let go and the lantern will lift up powered by the hot air. Just like a hot air balloon. It was very pretty to watch them first falter and then, as the crowd cheered them onward, and the air inside the dome got hot enough, they would gracefully lift off into the night... But I wondered what would happen after they fizzled out and dropped into the sea... Imagine all of them littering the sea surface... That's the price we pay for our festivities, I guess...
We were so engrossed in the display that for a while we didn't comprehend what happened as the crowd began to cheer and shout louder than ever... Then my wife looked at her watch and said "Happy New Year, dear"... And just like that, without even realizing it, we had left behind 2015 and had ventured forth with the first tentative temporal footsteps into a whole new year...
We stood around for a while still enjoying the lanterns and the few fireworks that continued to light up the new sky... The festivities didn't show any signs of abating. I guess they would continue all the way till dawn. We finally bade farewell to Marine Drive and made our way back to the Churchgate station.
The 12:43 pm train to Bandra was about to leave. We had to go beyond that. So we waited and boarded the 12:50 Virar slow train. An extremely rare occasion in both our lives - boarding a local train so late in the night. It was fairly crowded. For, though quite a few people continued to enjoy the night, many, like us, had decided to call it quits. At least my wife got a seat, thanks to a Muslim gentleman who vacated it at my behest. It was pretty difficult to get down at Goregaon - thanks to the fools who like standing at the door risking their life in order to enjoy the wind... I exchanged angry words with some of them. But that was not the last quarrel I would be having that night.
There was a lone rickshaw outside the station. And the driver refused to take us in. I was already riding high on anger and adrenaline. I stood right in front of his vehicle and refused to budge. I started shouting for the cops. A havaldar standing near the railway police chowky quickly came to our aid. The police, it seems, were doing great work tonight. The hawaldar took down my wife's name and number (this was specifically for safety of women, he claimed), the registration number of the rick, and the name and number of the driver. Then he scolded the driver and ordered him to take us safely to our destination...
We finally arrived home at 1:45 pm. On the whole it had been a nice evening with a few good memories to cherish. And so we slept and dreamt our first dreams of the New Year 2016...
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