Boston v/s (Bombay) Mumbai (Part II)

Yay! So, I'm back.
Finals [check]
Plans for winter break [ ]

Yes, none. I'm just gonna stay at home, eat and sleep (so basically, get fat). And since I promised a part two, here it is.




People:

Boston: People here don't judge you. You can be yourself at all times. You can do anything you want, unless it's illegal of course. Nobody tells you to be this way or that (Other than people back home maybe) It could also be called as indifference. Like nobody would bother if you laugh/shout/fall down.
One plus point is that you can step out in your Pjs and not worry about what people will think.


Mumbai: Nosy people everywhere. People here are more interested in what you do rather than minding their own business. Which brings us to the next point, staring.

Staring:

Boston: It is considered RUDE to stare. Thank you humans, thank you. Goodbye to all those years of feeling conscious because you're being watched. (Am I exaggerating? Maybe)


Mumbai: Staring at random people is just as important as breathing. You cannot survive with it! Just ask the ladies in the train. Man! All they do is stare at you. And not just stare, they look you up and down. That's just plain irritating at times. And let me tell you, giving them a look back doesn't make them stop. It's as if you've participated in a staring competition, and you have no idea about it until you see a pair of eyes staring right at you.






Greeting people:

Boston: You might find strangers coming up to you and talking. If you're walking on the road, a passerby may give you a smile, nod or even ask you how you doing! (not the Joey style though). Greeting people is a big thing here. And it feels good when a random stranger wishes you good morning :)

This creeped me out big time initially. It still might! Also, questions like how you doing/how's it going, just mean Hi/Hello, and they don't actually want to know the story. That's actually very funny. I've had many instances when I've said good, how about you, and this person had already walked past!!

Mumbai: Well, random strangers might give you a smile once in a while. But that's not the same. And if you randomly smile at passersby, they might think you're a crazy person, and grimace instead. Though, sometimes the train ladies might strike up a conversation with you, and you could've a good talk. (I have no idea why I keep talking about train ladies)

Holding doors:

Boston: If you're passing through a door, and if you see someone walking right behind you, you keep the door open for them.


Mumbai: Bang it right on their face if you must. I've hardly seen people hold doors for strangers.








Weekends and Parties:



*I'm not a party person. But I guess, parties are so much more similar in both these countries*


Boston: Weekends are a big thing here. Especially if it's a long weekend. It's a big relief. And everyone usually has some plans for the weekends! I sleep. (Well, that's the best plan)


Mumbai: Free time? That's like a dream. We had college on weekends too. So, you know how we spent the weekends.















------------------

That's all I got for this post. Time to sleep. (Just kidding, NOT)

Have a good day :)

Twilight!

Boston v/s (Bombay) Mumbai (Part I)

So I decided that I'll write this post in parts because I'm taking too long to write just one. I started writing this one long back, and it had been lying stale in my drafts folder for over a month now. Procrastination. Anyway, so here's the first part. Enjoy. Hope you like it!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aha! Hello everybody! Yay this is my first (now second) ever post since coming here! For people who don't know what I'm up-to, I'm at Boston, MA for pursuing further education! I arrived here just a fortnight ago, and I guess it'll be a month (Two months hah!) by the time I actually post the blog. Boston's being good so far. Soon I might not describe it using the same adjective! I do love winters though. Snow, Christmas, so much to look forward to.
So as you can make out from the title, I'm gonna compare Boston and Mumbai based on what I've noticed in the past 14 days. (soon 30 days or a year? Procrastination) I haven't seen much of Boston, but I noticed so many differences, some of them might be too random or useless to even give a thought to. That's just another way of saying I'm gonna talk about pigeons and other random things (Sorry about that :P). Bear with me. Okay, so here we go!

I. Commuting/ Transportation:


A. The cheapest and the most common way of transportation:

Irrelevant, but funny!

Boston: WALKING. Yes. People here, literally walk to every place. Since the day I arrived here, I've been walking to places. I spent all my jet-lag recovery time walking, though I did sleep for 12 hrs straight on the second day! Once you get on the road, you see people walk walk and walk. There are cars, buses, etc. on the roads, but maximum people walk or skateboard!

Mumbai (or in India basically): You got them Rickshaws! In India, you can just catch an auto rickshaw and travel! We also have tons of 2 wheelers zooming on the roads, which is so not the case at Boston. There are hardly any two wheelers here.









B. Traveling by the bus

People should start using the bus more often!

Boston: The buses in Boston have very few seats, and there's no conductor! You collect your ticket when you get on the bus from the driver!!!! And you aren't returned back the money just because they don't have a change. You can also purchase a ticket with your card (How cool is that?). The kind bus drivers wish you a good day, and ask you where you have to get down. All buses are air-conditioned. I travelled by the bus here just once, but it was the best bus experience I've ever had. Also, the buses here are always on time.

Mumbai: You have to be a wrestler to get on the bus, because they're always overflowing with people. The frequency of buses is less and they're almost never on time. You have to wait for hours and hours at the bus-stop to catch a bus. And when you actually get on the bus, you have to wait for a very long time to get your ticket. Buses have conductors who are responsible to sell tickets. Some conductors are sweet, some are not. And when I say not sweet, I mean evil. Before you even hand over money to the conductor, they bark out "sutte kadha!" (That's Marathi for 'tender exact change'). And if you don't do so, they give you the most frustrated expressions they can manage. Bus transport needs improvisations like increasing the frequency, punctuality so as to decrease the rush. Other than these few things, bus travel is quite cheap. And I used to quite love it, especially when I got window seats!



C. Cabs/ Taxis

Boston: You have so many options here. There's the traditional public cab, and private cab services like Lyft, Uber, etc. Most of them accept cards, so you don't have to worry about carrying money. Plus, cab drivers are so polite. My very first ride (from the airport) was in a Lyft cab. The cab driver greeted us, and talked to us on our entire ride to home. It felt so unlike the cab experiences I've had in Mumbai.

Mumbai: In this aspect, Mumbai is just at par with Boston. Though it's a bit more advanced in Boston, but pretty much the same.




D. Trains

Waiting for the train

Boston: (While I write this, I've already completed over 2 months here, so you know how good I'm at procrastination!) The trains here are way too awesome. They refer to the train as the "T". MBTA, the transport authority here, controls everything. Buses, trains, etc! Owning a Charlie card makes travel smooth. You just have to tap it and off you can go! I haven't had much of train traveling, but I did experience Khopoli-like crowd during one of my journeys! (Khopoli is a train station back in Maharashtra, India. The trains which travel to and fro from Khopoli are always overflowing with people) The only difference I would say is that you won't find people hanging outside train doors here! Train drivers wait to see if everybody has boarded, and the doors close, so people who like to swing outside doors stand no chance here. People don't walk on train tracks, and have to pay a heavy fine if they are caught crossing tracks.

Mumbai: Nothing could really beat traveling by trains in Mumbai! Though train travel isn't all that developed like it is here. Mumbai trains have the Smart cards, ATVM machines. Train travel is on it's way to becoming better. I have an entire post dedicated to train travel in Mumbai! Go check it out > Traveling by Local Trains. A really positive thing about Mumbai trains is that.. Oh chuck it, I can't think of anything. Just kidding. Traveling by trains is way too much fun, unless you're in a Khopoli train at the peak office hour time, of course.




E. Roads 

Boston: Boston has beautiful roads, which are regularly cleaned and well maintained. All roads have sidewalks and guess what! People actually use them! Pedestrians are given first priority, and cars wait for pedestrians to cross the road even if they have a green signal. How kind is that! Also, the funniest thing I've encountered after coming here is that while crossing a road, we have a habit of looking to the left. While here, it's completely opposite. Cars drive on the right side of the road. The vehicles have a left hand drive, unlike in India. All roads have signals, road signs which are visible and not faded.

Mumbai: Aah. The roads in Mumbai. Walking/ Driving on roads is nothing short of a hiking experience. The roads have such huge potholes like tortuous hilly routes! Okay, I'm exaggerating. But roads do need improvement because every monsoon, roads end up getting damaged.
Pedestrians walk on the road even when the roads have sidewalks. Crossing the road earns you a free Adrenaline rush! Because no vehicle wants to wait and let people cross. Vehicles hardly wait at red signals, why even expect them to wait at green? (unless they've run out of petrol) Who cares about the left side, right side? The road is all ours, and we can drive on any side we want. Not exaggerating here.



F. Google Maps*

Boston, Mumbai and anywhere else in the world :
The Google maps lady is insane! Sorry about that Google. She makes me take the longest route almost always. And keeps re-navigating the route. Maybe it's Google's conspiracy to keep people in good health, because it sure does make me walk a lot. Let me explain some more. I and a bunch of friends wanted to visit the Reflection pool. So, one fine evening, we all decided to go and finally have a look at it. Opened Google maps, searched for the location. The app said 30 minutes walk, off we went. Saw the reflection pool, clicked tons of photos. Now we decided we'll walk back home via a different route. Guess what! We just walked for about 5 minutes around the area, and saw our apartment street. Now just tell me Google maps, why do you do this!! Why would you make us walk for 30 odd minutes to get to a place which was just a 5 minutes walk from our place.

 *Okay, I admit that there's a possibility that Google maps doesn't work too well for me might be because of my inability to use it properly. But, it has fooled us into walking for hours for a 15 minutes route not just once, but trillions of times. And my friends would agree to that.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Number of times I've used the word Procrastination: You tell me!
Second part coming up soon!


Have a great day!

Halloween!

 So, last week I had my first ever Halloween at Boston! Sadly, I was too busy with my Organic synthesis assignment that I couldn't do much on the day. The pictures below are fruits of my procrastination! See, I always knew procrastination always led to something good. Kidding, of course. I participated in a pumpkin painting session held at my university, and I spent around an hour there instead of studying for my test. Guilty. But at least now I have a showpiece for my cupboard?

:P Face in the making!

The :O face

The :P Face

I seriously need to start writing here more often! I have a post on Boston v/s Mumbai coming up and I've been saying that since last month. Procrastination again. I guess that's the most used word in my blog. Anyway, I'll get back to writing soon! Till then, take care guys! :)

Have a good day! :)

Shoppity Shop Shop

   "Because when I shop, the world gets better" - Rebecca Bloomwood, Confessions of a Shopaholic Series.

 

 SHOPPING. 

 There was a time when I used to dread this very word. Shopping can literally be a pain sometimes. Walking into shops, searching for clothes you want to buy, finally ending up with clothes you didn't plan on buying, followed by trying them on, making the final choice, running towards the cash counters so that you don't end up waiting for a long time in the queues, doing all this in one day can get you tired enough. (even writing this huge long sentence got me tired) So yeah, shopping is a task. And yet, so many shops are brimming with customers at any time of the day. I always wonder how and why.

I used to run away at the thought of shopping. My apathy towards shopping made me quite the wrong person to go shopping with.
Until now. 

Naah, just kidding. I'm still quite the same. Maybe a little better.
Anyway, enough about me. Let's get straight to the topic, types of shoppers. Here we go.

1. Shopaholics? Shopaphilics?  

These are real life Rebecca Bloomwoods [quoted above] of the Confessions of Shopaholic series. They can shop for anything, anywhere and anytime. When it comes to shopping at thrift stores, they can bargain and make the seller reach any price they want. They know the timings and locations of all shopping stores. They are basically the know-it-alls of the shopping world. These are one of people you'd want to go shopping with. They don't even need an invitation. They're ever ready to shop. They'll even forgo their dear sleep to assist you.
Also beware, if you're like me (you take nothing less than a century for selection of clothes) and you happen to take them along for your shopping, they will end up buying the whole store if you take too long. It's in their very nature to shop for stuff even when they don't need it. They can end up buying absolutely anything, and have no regrets. Going to a shop and returning back home empty handed is a sin for them. God help these people.

2. The Smarties

These are serious and practical shoppers. Shop owners might harbour a slight dislike for these people. Simply because their marketing strategies don't seem to work on them. When these people go for shopping, they take along a concise list of items to buy, and will not budge from the list. Strong headed people, they know what they want and will not pay any heed to the efforts taken by the ever so struggling sales people. I kinda admire these people. It must take so much effort to ignore items on a discount/sale, but then again we all know how discounts really work (and yet, the smartest ones of us too fall for such tricks)

3. The misfits 

Misfits of the shopping world. I consider myself as one of them. These people never get what they want in their size or preferred colour. I've had so many such experiences, especially while shopping for shoes. I had almost given up shopping for shoes some time back. I never ever get a perfect size. I'm somewhere between a UK shoe size 3 and 4. Yeah I know I have small feet. Size 3 shoes are too tight, size 4 too loose. I've tried 3.5, they didn't fit me either. 3.75? No, they don't make that size. There should be sizes in all sorts of fractions, that would solve my problem maybe? Moving on to clothes now, what if a person is not a perfect size 10, but a size 10.7252728? (Hypothetical) Now, there is no size 11, so this person has to go for a size 12 which might be too loose and dangly. Why why why! 

Getting something of proper size and colour is nothing less than a miracle. Rarely ever happens to us. So basically, now you know what the people of this category do. Yes, we blame our bad luck, and keep cribbing about not getting clothes of our size (like I just did above. Sigh.)

4. Ninja shoppers

(Unexplained obsession for ninjas: check. Reader thinks I'm crazy: check.)

Ignore the nonsense in the parenthesis, if you can. 

Okay, so ninja shoppers are basically super quick shoppers. They're so quick with selecting clothes. They go to a shop, try on the selected clothes, make the decision super quick and are out of the store in no time. How do they do that? Like I mentioned before, I take a century long time to decide on clothes. I can never imagine getting out of a shop with bags within 30 minutes ( unless it's not a clothing store, of course) 

5. People who say stuff like: "That dress I saw the other day at the store. I should've bought it. It's haunting me now. I think about it all the time. Please take me there! I want it!!!"

Does the title sound a tad crazy to you? I know so many people who are supposedly haunted. Yes, haunted, that too by clothes they wanted to buy but couldn't due to whatever reasons. They are so determined to buy those clothes that they end up dreaming about them. They usually end up buying them too. Imagine a ghost movie with clothes haunting people instead of ghosts, saying "BUY ME BUY ME!" at the background. Yeah, that's how it must be for them.

6. The "Try and Never Buy" Shoppers
  
  Window shoppers. Basically, all of us at some 
point in our lives. Window shopping works well mostly for the strong heads, or shopaholics when they run out of funds. There are people who actually enjoy window shopping. I know people who go to a shopping store and just try out clothes with no intention of buying them. They just enjoy the prospect of going to shops, regardless of whether they're going to make any purchases or not! It's so tough to not buy something when you like it.

Aaand we're done! So which one are you? :D
 

Travelling by the bus

Since my post about travelling by local trains was a total hit with my friends. Totally boasting :P 

Now hoping for a similar response, I'd like to rant about all sorts of annoying people you'd meet if you happen to take the bus! I take the bus everyday , so I'm quite used to seeing these people. You'll come across quite similar kind of people on the bus and the trains. Because flying ninjas can't always fly to the station , they gotta take the bus sometimes :P (you'll have to read my previous blog to understand the joke! So go read it first! :P).

I promise to write well this time. OK, just kidding! This is just going to be another awkward, badly written post. No, I'm not fishing for compliments. But if that's making you roll out a few compliments, you could comment below :P Okay, now that I'm done begging for comments, here we go!

1. The latecomers:
These are an annoying lot. They are late almost every single time. No, it isn't that they don't know the bus timings, they simply don't get enough time for their morning jogs, so they compensate that by jogging behind the bus. That doesn't seem like a bad thing now, does it? Exercise is good, but find your own time for it. Don't waste our time! Some people really need to reach someplace by a certain time. Why do they have to suffer? Argh! I've experienced this so many times, I get so pissed off at the bus drivers -.- why stop for the late comers?! Late comers never got a chance back in school, why should they get any now? What about all those "always be punctual" lessons we were taught in value education class? School education is a waste, hence proved xP
I can understand getting late once or twice. Even I've been late at times. But everyday? That's a bit too much people. I wish they would start giving late remarks to these latecomers too just like in school. And then maybe fine them after they get a certain number of remarks :P

2. The door clingers:

 Obvious from the title, these are the ones who you'll find clinging to the door. Yes, even when there are plenty of empty seats. Maybe they think that being half outside the door would entitle them for just half the ticket price? Mostly men, they cling to the doors regardless of the stop on which they want to get down. And yeah, if you need to get down at your stop and you ask them if they are getting down too, they'll just look back, give you a blank are-you-talking-to-me?- look and look back to where they were looking. And that's it, they won't even budge unless the stop comes up. So finally when your stop comes up, this person will like a monkey swing himself to make way for you. Sorry for the monkey reference, but that's what monkeys do! :P
Jokes apart, if you're a door clinger, please stop being one! Unless, of course if the bus is really full and there's no place to stand! You need to be careful, you could seriously get hurt if you fall off a moving bus.

3. The window seat hoggers :

Happiness indeed :P

Okay I won't lie, I am one of these people. I just love sitting by the window and looking out (and pretending I'm in some movie, you know with all the wind, hair flying and all that :P Just kidding). I just like having the window seat! But that doesn't mean I won't take a seat unless it's beside the window. I've seen people run, like they really run to get the window seat. And if suppose, they don't manage to reach there in time, they don't sit at all. They go standing all the way, or ask someone to give their window seat to them. Wanting the window seat is completely fine, but going all lengths to get it, not so much. I know some people get claustrophobic, so they really do need windows. I sometimes wonder if using claustrophobia as an excuse would help me get a window seat *evil laugh* Naah I guess I'd just get a I-don't-know-what-you-talking-about stare. Oops am I being too repetitive? Am I being too repetitive? (Geddit? :P #stolenfromiisuperwomenii)


 
4. The standing lot :
There are few people who travel standing because they have no choice, and then there are few people who choose to travel standing. Yes, you read it right.

When the bus driver slams on the breaks

Some people actually like to travel standing. I don't understand these people. They simply love to stand I guess. There have been times when I've got on the bus and got no seat, I've had to travel standing and to be honest, I never liked it. It's almost like a roller coaster ride with no seat belts, and of course no seats xP I just googled -when the bus driver slams on the brakes- and this is what I found! xD





5. The kind people:
These people rule! Everyone should try becoming like them. These people offer seats to the elderly people, it makes me restore my almost lost faith in humanity xP People can be kind! There have been days when my bag has been too heavy, filled with books, and people have offered to carry my bag. If this doesn't make you go aww, I don't know what will! :)


So, this sums up my list of people you'd meet on the bus. I know this list is too short, I've given few categories a miss since they've already featured in the local trains blog :P Refer the categories numbered 2,3,4,5 here > Travelling by local trains
 Alright, I hope you had a good read! 
Have a good day! :)