Our Funarena!

We felt tired and hungry that evening after going through a veritable shopping spree in an upmarket area of the big city. Of course, we did not shop in the cool and expansive showrooms. We moved on, standing all the time, from vendor to vendor sprawled as usual along the pavement doing brisk business. Add to that our tedious journey by a city bus before that. Now, another bus journey where a seat was never guaranteed back home staring at us, we definitely would not have liked to undertake it, starving mad.   It was not in our planning to have tea and snacks as most of the restaurants where you could sit and eat in comfort were very expensive. However, in earnest consultation with my wife, we finally decided to respect the signals blipping constantly in the bellies.   We entered one airconditioned and posh restaurant and took a side table along the glass paneled wall, rewarding us with a nice view outside. The waiters were in uniform. One elderly waiter came up to us smiling. We

What happened was unbelievable for me—living in Mumbai for years. A sense of business or a drive for business is always palpable almost everywhere in this mega city that never goes to sleep—from the slum hutments to the luxurious high-rise enclaves. One has to be business minded here not only to survive , but also to earn the extra bucks to survive better or to amass millions to figure among the dirty rich. The business atmosphere is so friendly that at your local market you can shop even without having money in the pocket. The seller or vendor just fills your bag with the stock response ‘You won’t run away, would you!’ Therefore, what happened was just beyond me. Today being Maha Shivratri apart from being a Sunday too, my wife had a sudden requirement for few things around 4.30 pm. I decided to visit the nearby society grocery store to save time. The residential credit society had a tough time finding a suitable business partner to run the store for them, and finally they

“Oh…at long last! Such obsessive shoppers…from morning to night…insatiable…persistent! Never care a penny for us! Now they are gone! We can  fill in the atmosphere now and take a nap, possibly!”                                                  “Wish us sweet dreams, guys!”