Livinghigh: The hitchhiker observes...
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Livinghigh was here at 7:18 PM /



The hitchhiker observes...

It's a fact. People are not always the best informed about the places they've been born and brought up in. People who come visiting a place often find out deeper little facets about it. People who come to a place to live in it for a longer period of time discover other nooks and cranies that neither of the two classes of people earlier mentioned ever found. And like a very complicated Venn Diagram, there are always little 'unions' and 'intersections' that the three groups have among them.

Cut to a month back: There's a group of people having lunch and the topic of discussion is, quite naturally, desserts and the places to get them best in Mumbai. And, while the two true-blue Mumbaikars at the table sat looking dazed, a comparatively new entrant in the city (she's lived here about two years) kept on rattling names of places where to get the best brownies, chocolate pastries, blueberry cheesecakes, ice cream sundaes, et al.

Cut to a week back: Another cut-from-the-cloth Mumbaikar didn't know that Girgaom Chowpatty was called so. It's just... Chowpatty to her... and probably to many other Mumbaikars like her!

Cut to a year back: We're in Delhi, and someone who's always prided himself as a true Punjabi son-of-the-soil has no idea about the pub we're hitting that night, while I've been there twice already! So, he scratches his head in puzzlement, but after a coupla numbers, once he discovers that he quite likes the place, he lets his hair down, and starts doing the bhangra nach le enthusiastically!

I plead guilty to the same. I've lived in Calcutta for 21 of my nearly 24 years, but haven't explored it in the manner that I have done Chennai, Delhi or Mumbai. My life in Calcutta has been very cloistered: quite limited to the area around my home and my school/ college, and it was only much later, in the last two years or so, that I started exploring other areas and landmarks. There have been intentions, but I guess the drive hasn't been there. The drive's there now, but the city isn't.


8 Comments:

A friend has been in Delhi for a week and I've been sightseeing with him...I suddenly realise how little I know about the city, though I've lived here for ten years. (I just did a blog entry about this..hmm..)On the plus side, I'm falling in love with the city all over again:)

By Blogger Aishwarya, at 1:18 AM  

So true - I think you tend to take a lot of things for granted in the city you've always lived in. sink into a kind of a rut of sorts and don't explore and renew your connaissance of the city...sometimes staying away knocks it into your head how much the place really means to you...
Missing Bbay :-S

Btw you gonna be news-reader now or continue writing backstage?

By Blogger G Shrivastava, at 2:31 PM  

aishwarya - am in love with dilli too! ;-)

geet - neither of de above. wait and watch. hehehe.

By Blogger livinghigh, at 9:13 PM  

Hey there,
Good post :)
Its really true that people whome live in the city know less that people who come to the city to stay for a few period of time.

Its liek the grass is always greener on the other side

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:54 AM  

I'm sorry this may come out as Pedantic {that's me}. But I've newer found myself in the situation at all.
Maybe it's because I'm a perennial tourist.

By Blogger Unknown, at 12:06 PM  

deepa - hey there, nice to meet ya! thanx for coming by, and adding me.. but u dont have any comments field on urs blog, eh?

akshay - yes, mr camera, we depend on YOU to satisfy our travel lust!

By Blogger livinghigh, at 8:36 PM  

i plead gulity to the same. i had no idea where bade miyan?????? but now i know thanks to ............ummmmmmm whose idea was it to go there for dinner????u or kunal?well whoever it was, i am glad that we went there.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:36 PM  

i mean where bade miyan was.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:39 PM  

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