Mumbai BEST bus price hike

If you’ve travelled by the bus today, especially at a peak hour, it is likely that you might have rode with a crowd of moaning passengers, ranting over the outrageous hike in ticket fares with effect from today – 27 April 2012. I personally was taken aback as well, when I was asked to buy a Rs. 13 ticket as opposed to the usual Rs. 8. And the Rs. 10 ticket now raised to Rs. 16, which is like 60% of a raise. The Magic bus pass is now Rs. 700 monthly and Rs. 2000 quarterly. Just a year back, the fares rose by Rs. 2, which was acceptable. But the new rise is just another hole, this time a much bigger one, in the common man’s pocket, in Mumbai. image With the sudden rising expenses in Mumbai, the island city as well as its suburbs, seem to be moving at a speedy pace towards a standard of living that only makes lives miserable for the local residents, mainly the middle class. With property rates also soaring sky high, luxury apartments amounting to crores of rupees, Mumbai has turned into the most expensive city in the world for its locals, an average Indian now requiring as long as three centuries of work to afford one of these luxury flats in the city.

You know you are from Mumbai (Bombay) when…

800px-Mumbai_Taj

You know you are from Mumbai (Bombay) when

1. You say “town ” and expect everyone to know that*this means south of Churchgate.

2 You speak in a dialect of Hindi called ‘Bambaiya Hindi’, which only Bombayites can understand.

3. Your door has more than three locks.

4. Rs 500 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag.

800px-Mumbai_Train5. Train timings (9.27, 10.49 etc) are really important events of life.

6. You spend more time each month traveling than you spend at home.

7. You call an 8′ x 10′ clustered room a Hall.

8. You’re paying Rs 10,000 for a 1 room flat, the size of walk-in closet and you think it’s a “steal.”

9. You have the following sets of friend: school friends, college friends, neighborhood friends, office friends and yes, train friends, a species unique only in Bombay.

10. Cabbies and bus conductors think you are from Mars if you call the roads by their Indian name, they are more familiar with Warden Road, Peddar Road, Altamount Road.

11. Stock market quotes are the only other thing besides cricket which you follow passionately.

12. The first thing that you read in the Times of India is the “Bombay Times” supplement.

13. You take fashion seriously. You’re suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.

14. Hookers, beggars and the homeless are invisible.

15. You compare Bombay to New York’s Manhattan instead of any other cities of India.

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