India, Through the eyes of a college student! – Part 1

August 12, 2020August 22, 2020 / Anjali Khanal

Last year in 2019, we had a beautiful long tour to India for almost 20 days from our college. We were taken to major places of some beautiful cities. Whenever I have nothing else to do, I just look back at those days where we all were far from home, in a different country, living the best days of our life, I always end up smiling. And I really look forward to take my entire family to visit India once.

The following things you will read is completely based on what a normal college student was able to grasp and see in that tour. This series will have six different parts, explaining all the things I experienced and I saw, because I don’t want to bore you guys by lengthening it all in a single part! Hope you all like it!

“Mumbai- City of dreams”

Ranjana Lipi of Nepal-City of Dreams Mumbai!

Our first destination was of course the Mayanagari itself! We were so much excited to be there. We drove up to Gorakhpur in a public bus and from Gorakhpur we travelled through the train. It was a new experience for almost all of us since we do not have any kind of train in our country.

We were seated in the train probably around 7/7:30 PM and we reached Mumbai around 4:55 AM the next day after! We were on the train for around 32 hours and it was kind of draining. We came across various incidents in the train which is so memorable to us till the date. We ate train foods for the first time and lots and lots of “chaii” (Tea), it was a fun new experience for all of us!

When we got off the train in the morning, we were taken to our hotel and were asked to get some rest and be on the lobby before 8 AM. We got fresh and we were ready to stroll around the Mayanagari that day! I still remember how uncertain was the weather of Mumbai. It rained for couple of minutes and the next moment you know the sun is shining so bright. It was quite a fun kind of weather.

Our Destination for that day was The Essel World of Mumbai! I have one unknown fear with water, which never allowed me to learn swimming and I Always feared being around swimming pools, so I was not going anywhere near to the water kingdom there. Among the group of nearly 70 students only 4, including me were not going to the water kingdom that day, rather we group of four went to the amusement park, being the brave ones of course!

That day I forgot my fear of heights, fear of speed and played almost every single ride in that park. There were around 70 rides, among which I believe we played around 60-70% of them. That day was one of the most amazing day of that entire tour. We made some Indian friends, one was a little girl, who was so brave enough to play every scary rides with us. She was such a friendly soul. That day ended with lots of fun and now we were left with one more day to stroll around Mumbai.

Next day we were taken for sightseeing where our amazing guide Mr. Santosh was describing about life in Mumbai and was also showing us the places where the celebrities lived.

Firstly we went to the siddhibinayak temple where we stood on a long line and finally got the chance to worship Lord Ganesh there. I have forever been obsessed with Lord Ganesh from my childhood (That movie My Friend Ganesha reference here) so that was a great moment where I was actually able to worship and be near Ganesha in India too.

After that, We were strolling around and we approached Bandstand beach. Being a huge SRK (Shahrukh Khan) fan, when the bus stopped, I jumped out of the bus immediately and ran across the road like a maniac until I reached the gate of his house “Mannat”. There were so many tourists at that place, People were more interested at SRK’s house than the beach in front of it, not that the beach was in a good shape itself, still people were more interested to click pictures with a gate! I think that’s what SRK has established himself up to. I too took many pictures on the gate pretending it was SRK itself standing by my side.

Later we went to Juhu beach and unfortunately my sandal decided to leave me all alone. In simple words, It got torn and I didn’t have an extra pair with me at that moment. So I used a safety pin to keep it intact until we got to the hotel. After Juhu we went to a mall, (High Street Phoenix) where I was super embarrassed to be. I was wearing a sandal held together by a safety pin, to a mall where celebrities and richest people go for their shopping! I still get super embarrassed remembering that event.

After almost roaming around for nearly two hours in that fanciest mall being super embarrassed, and not buying a single thing we went to Gateway of India. It was dark already at that time, still the gate and the Taj hotel next to it was lit so bright and it actually looked mesmerizing.
We got some pictures clicked by the photographer there and had a huge bargaining session for a while. Those people finally agreed after almost 10 minutes of bargaining and it felt like we won something very big that day! (Haha)

And yes I ate one paan that day, not that I had never eaten one, but it was my first Indian Paan! 😉 And it was amazing ❤

So, in overall my journey to Mumbai was great! I felt so poor sometimes around all the richest people there, still I had a lots of fun. Mumbai in my view has the richest as well as poorest group of people. There were huge buildings all around the city and the slum area was not so far too. I often hear that Mumbai is a city of dreams, Now that I went and saw everything there I quite understand why it’s called so.

So this was my short two days stay in Mumbai’s journal. Thank you for patiently reading all my rantings. After Mumbai, where do you think we went next? Hints – A place full of oceans and seas and also where beers are comparatively cheap! Leave your guesses in the comments below!

Mumbai- A dream itself!
–Twinkling_tweets

Thank you for your taking out your time to read my article. This means a lot. Follow @anjaliutters to motivate me more if you haven’t already!!