A (Star)day at Mumbai Airport

“This is a love song for you..la la “…oh, that’s my cell phone ringer and I am glad finally he called up. Elated I was to hear him from the other side.”Hey, sweetie!!,  We are moving to Mumbai, I got a job there”, he said. “What??, Mumbai!!, ok good, so when are we shifting”, I responded. “20^th of Next month, it’s a Saturday, start packing”, He said and hung up.

I looked at my phone thinking gone are the days when we would talk for hours and still wait for other one to do the honors. Well this was some six years back though. May be I too need one of those Pond’s cream. Anyways…Now Mumbai definitely might sound a cool place to many of my friends but not to me .Monsoon trauma ,Traveling hassles and terror attacks were enough to keep that place out of my wish list. But still there was something exciting about that place …

“We are at Chattarpati Shivaji Airport, Passengers are requested to remain on their seats till the seat belt lights are on. Hope you had a great flight and we look forward to see you soon”, the pretty kingfisher airhostess said in her own style and ever charming smile . But as we Indians never fail to let the world know that we cant be driven by instructions ,almost all were up queuing behind each other as if that might fasten the procedure of getting off the plane. Since I hate getting pushed by people , chose to sit back and waited for others to fulfill there wish only to notice that somebody has been equally sane. “I remember, I have seen her somewhere” ,I told my husband. ”Shhh , shut up , you are too loud. Don’t you know she is Carol Gracias, the super model”, he whispered and also gave a broad smile to her . Now this was not acceptable for I don’t remember when did he smiled at me last. “Whatever, she is not that great too”, I tried to be loud enough but somehow it didn’t come out that well.

We landed at 5:30 pm and since Carol had raised my expectations , I started looking around for my favorite cine star. As if Mr. Amitabh Bachchan will just come and say, “Hi lady, I have been waiting to see you for a while now”. Lost in my thoughts I turned only to see my husband smiling at me for he somehow read my mind. “Should we move further, incase you have received an invite from him”, He giggled. He knows that for me Mumbai is not financial capital rather ‘star capital’ and I am one Big B movie buff . “Oh ya”, I said ,awkwardly.

 While we were waiting for the luggage, suddenly heard a long lost but familiar voice, “Oh my God, is that Shakuni Mama”, I shouted. My husband simply gave me a look and that said it all. Shakuni Mama, alias Gufi Paintal too was amused enough to know that there are people who still remember his deadly performance which actually led to Mahabharat.

“Hey ,don’t you think that suitcase is ours, the one which that man in blue shirt is picking ”, I asked my husband. “Oh yes, let me just see”. He replied and ran towards him. I followed him too, only to bump into Ravi Kishan who was standing almost next to me. ‘zindagi zand ba baki sab ghamd ba’…his famous dailoge from Big Boss was all I could remember about him. But from my previous experience , I controlled myself and went on without acknowledging and even apologizing, for the head on collision was the obvious reason for his Ray Ban to fall on ground. ‘Now he should have been more cautious and god knows why is the whole TV industry here to welcome me ’, I said to myself softly this time.

Finally we were at the cab point with our luggage , and I was wondering if I have seen any of the people around in any movie. Trust me observing people can be a great past time , just that God forbid, they shouldn’t be from D Company. As we were about to start , my husband almost shouted, “Look that’s Kareena, isn’t she beautiful”. Now somebody was raising eyebrows on my pitch sometime back. “Oh, I wish she had come with Saif”, I said and we both started laughing. We got in cab with smiles on our face ready to start our new journey in Mumbai on a Star studded Saturday.