Summer has set into my city. The heat is getting unbearable with each passing day. So today morning when I stepped out for my walk, I was taken aback by the whiff of fresh air which filled my lungs with the pure smell of morning dew and greenery. Hurriedly I took a few deep breaths, so sure that by the end of it the freshness will be gone. But fortunately I  enjoyed it for another 20 minutes and felt blissed. My thoughts immediately wandered off to the times when I used to go visit my son when he was studying in Woodstock School, Mussoorie a couple of years back.  24/7....yes 24/7 I could fill my lungs with the pure fresh air. Supposedly some years back my area in Mumbai too, was less crowded and there was no dust. I could keep the windows open ALWAYS. Didn't need the AC's. The maintenance guy would finish his job in ten minutes and would crib that we didn't use the AC much. But today if I keep the windows open for even 10 mins, I have a fine layer of dust all over my furniture. My heart yearns for the blissful days lost to the  agressive  development and the continous interior re-decoration going on in people's home every year. By March end I feel the need for AC's in my home. Sadly, my thoughts wander back to Mussoorie and I realise that few years from now I won't be able to fill my lungs with fresh air in Mussoorie too. I am pretty sure about this, taking into consideration the various changes the beautiful hill town is going through with so many brands coming in and the quality of the tourist getting rowdier. The town seems to be developing, but, I wonder at what cost?

Development should transform a place in a way that life gets easier and healthier for its inhabitants. It doesn't seem so when I pick up the morning newspapers and go through the statistics of pollution and the diseases setting in. The city should be getting more appealing to the eyes. On the contrary, the Metro construction is not even done and there are posters pasted at many strategic points already. I miss what Mumbai was and looked ten years ago. But then, its name sounded good as well.

When it comes to sounds, today morning at the age of 44 I wondered if I should go for a phonetics class in English. The afterthought was a result of a discussion with my son on how to pronounce Chris Evans' (Captain America in The Avengers) name. (Well he is from Woodstock school and has an accent to his English, which he has not given up even after two years of being back in Mumbai and knows how to pronounce all the English names) I pronounced it ee-vans...but he corrected it to be eh-vans like..... There was a heated argument and I tried to support with various examples that Eva makes it to be pronounced as  ee-vans. As a dedicated soul to the rightfulness of English and to prove that he is correct, in the heat of the argument he too excitedly put forth an example saying, "it might be at some places but Eva (he was talking about Eva in Wall E) was called eeva and so it is eeeeeeee......  errrrrrr.... Eh-vans." There was a pause and then we both could only burst out laughing .....

After contemplating for a couple of years I finally sat down today, to write this blog, because I felt my frustrations  as a Mumbaikar were innumerable and I needed to vent them out. I feel sad at the way the city is shaping up, but still my heart wants to believe, that after maybe about ten years of development, it will turn out to be beautiful and at par with major cities of the world. That's the undying attitude the city imparts to its residents.

I'll be back soon with few more frustrations. You too are invited to vent them out and let's discuss them and throw them out of our systems. Maybe that way we can cool ourselves off a little this summer...