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Remembering Powai

My silly pen drive was not showing up many files so it's time for a rub of it formatting it. But before doing so I recovered most of the files , few files did not openup and one was my last speech at Mumbai. My own farewell speech that I delivered

at my Mumbai office. Though the file did not open up but my mind raced back to thisbeautiful city which I left 14 months back. The Powai lake, the Hiranandani garden,the Marine Drive - everything comes back to my mind like a flash back.

The day before we dispatched our car for Vindhyanagar we drove to the Marine drivein our car one last time. That was a Friday night , the moon was hanging from thewestern sky like a sickle. The high tide water was splashing foams all along theserpentine coastline. We three sat silently on the beautiful promenade. The small seagulls were dancing on the waves . A few long ships were passing silently on the far

side. We were silent as we were feeling very sad for the imminent parting we aregoing to have in the next few days. However, the promenade was getting filled upevery moment by people from every walk of life. The word dead-of-night was simplymeaningless on Marine drive promenade at night.

This is the place while in Mumbai Marathon I ran shoulder to shoulder with whosewho of Mumbai. This is the most beautiful spot of Mumbai. Coming here only onefeels how beautiful & glittering this city is. This is the city where the Sea , the hills ,the lakes and a full reserve forest share the same territory.

Eight years back when we first time arrived here it was a huge rainy day inSeptember. The road from Airport to Andheri was under knee deep water. The oldtaxi driver stopped few times on the way as the JVLR was non existent that time andhe had to ask for directions to Powai. When we reached at the corner of the Powailake the rain had just stopped and the beautiful rain clad vast expanse of the lakecaught our attention in no time. Our love for Powai & Mumbai started that very dayand still continues in our heart.

The Hiranandani garden, Lake homes, Nahur ,

Raheja Vihar all started changing the sky line of Powai. Tall lanky towers startedappearing everywhere. The Ambrosia building was in the making then. The JVLRwas the most notorious broken road of Mumbai.

Our lives started rolling in Powai. My daughter got admission in class VI ofKendriya Vidyalaya ,Bhandup. Quickly she struck friendship with some girls whoalso live in Powai. Then came the flood of 2005 and we quickly understood some bigproblems of this city. Besides trademark jam of Mumbai this city has got a severedrainage problem. The story of choked Mithi river and trials & tribunals of Mumbai

people occupied the headlines of all the newspapers for quite sometime. In the officewe prepared a web magazine on Mumbai flood only. Some of the pictures of thatedition can never be forgotten in life.

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Two supermarkets Dmart and Haiko are indispensable part of Powai life so is theGalleria shopping arcade & the Crossword book store. The shops like Aromas ,

Mainland China have appeared too but they need to be here for sometime beforemaking a permanent impact on the minds of Powai. Though the Rodas hotel is as oldas Dmart or Haiko but it's prohibitive cost has never made it close to the averagePowaities what a poor foresight. Perhaps the Rodas authority too understood theproblem and now they are hosting many popular events to draw public attentions.

The ambrosia park, lake castle park & the heritage park have been developed in thelast 5 years. It has been the common walking place for many Powaities in these days.I used to go to all these parks but mostly to the ambrosia park. A big group of seniorretired people use to come to this park for morning workouts. After workoutsstanding in a row they used to laugh together. After that they sit in a circle and share

jokes among them. This time also they laughed but this laugh was more beatific thentheir laughing club laughs certainly witty laugh is more powerful then forcefullaughs.

The short height lady with pony tail hair while jogging in Ambrosia park, her hairdangles left & right like pendulum. I named her pendulum lady . Sometimes the oldman whom I meet everyday near the entrance used to offer me chocolates. The smartkid whom I befriended at the kids corner used to be very talkative. All these faces are

coming back in my mind now.

The narrow Eden market , it's confusing one way traffic ,

long and glittering plush shops near crossword book store, the powai lake fountainall have been our favorite evening loitering places. Sometimes we used to go to thePowai lake promenade for morning walkouts. Perhaps we could be little more wise toenjoy more time with these places.

In the beginning Mumbai Rain was disgusting to us but once after getting drenched in

rain we found it is one of the best thing this city can offer to a stranger. Driving onMumbai-pune highway in a rain clad weather amidst gushing down water falls of allshapes and sizes on either side of the road is one of the never-forgettable experienceshere. I wish to make this journey again.

This is spring time Several tress on Powai hills now start blooming. From theGokart ground the Powai hill looks full of colors. The playful parrots while makingshrill noise fly all over the Powai hills.

Planet Powai the small colorful weekly community newspaper of Powai is darling

of all Powaities. I don't know when did I first wrote for this paper but because of thispaper I watched & explored this city more avidly. The editor used to send me the softcopy of the paper for many weeks later but then it became infrequent and finally

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stopped coming one day out of sight is out of mind; so perfect !

Our mind works like a telescope , the more it goes away the more it focuses clearly

and finds more nuances of the object. Today I'm far away from this city but I findmore close encounters with it than ever before. Our body moves forward while our

mind races backward. Like a time machine it delves into the past and brings backmore happy moments out of nothing and anything can act as a trigger to that churningprocess.

Today this stupid pen drive has brought back those happy moments again.

Bye bye Powai and Mumbai.

S. BeraVindhyanagar.