Street of Lights.

These established roads we ride on are just so normal. Long pathways painstakingly build with cements and mighty stones. Leading one somewhere to a ride of discovery. It’s so surreal, a once upon a time constructed road can head you to many numerous spots. Maybe to voluntarily cooperate estate office, perhaps to a ground, maybe to temple or to Aunty Maryann and her pao bakery. You'll constantly be surprised by whom you'd encounter? Who would you pet? Who would lend a hand? Where you'd eat or maybe even you'd witness a crime.

The streets of Mumbai are a devouring blessing for Mumbaikars. To them who lawfully reside and the ones who visit. You’d be naturally surprised when the local taxi instantly reached from Dadar to Churchgate.

This passable road is one of its distinct kinds just like any other streets in Mumbai. More than just a street I should announce it a junction. An acute angle triangle junction dissecting established routes for the walkie-talkie people of bustling city. Gopinath Chavan Chowk universally holds notable incidents and lasting memories with every brief year.

A typical drink and drive accident zone. Desi daaru flimsy table with tawa chicken and delicious eggs. A string of modern accessories and ghar ka samaan convenient store it adequately accommodates the personal best of the best. To start off about any Chowk, I’d say heartily cobbled Mumbai streets are incomplete without a local restaurant round the prominent corner. Gopinath Chowk is lavishly bestowed with Mumbai’s locally popular Irani hotels, serving kheema pav and delicious puddings on a discovered Sunday morning. Unanimously agreed some of these prominent places are losing out on its divine essence with the demanding customer ki zaroorat, it still games among the local taxi and local workers.

Across the hotel stands a flowing line of affordable options for every local need. Go-to achaar corner with readymade pickles and excellent fries. A patch material shop for the garment stores nearby. The iconic lux cozy chaddi banyan buys at a dispensable price and a wholesale lace and button shop as an additional artwork for the garment line. A local desi taadi iconic bar ostensibly serves a cherry blossom drink with tawa chicken and egg for a luscious chaknna.

The visible line ahead holds ration Shilpa uncles ration patronize for all your cultivated wheat and organic rice. With bobby tailor stitching pants and immaculate suits for the dear old and the modern ones. Dr. Shanbaag instantly opens his shutter as a healing sight with breezy day and moonlit night carefully pouring countless patients getting absolutely good and fine. A chai with vada and bhajia stall and Jaggi aunty vegetable mandi for all the home chefs to dine sumptuously. The panchyaat group traditionally gathers around the banyan tree with the cobbler mending every well-worn shoe he meets. A traditional road side barber carefully grooms the affordable locals with a taxi parking zone around the complex junction.

The lively street prominently beholds a renounced dosa corner from Kerala, but one fine day he was brutally slaughtered on this very Chowk of dhanda. The intentional murder undoubtedly brought social trauma around the locals. This was economically a private revenge of one bother for its local pride. The gruesome was witnessed by all; call it his personal customers or the passing hawks. An eye for an eye had instantly struck on the street, with the hafta policy among the surviving shops.

Saroj aunty sat with her dainty basket of bananas under the banyan tree. One pleasant morning it struck down with a thud crashing two lives on the street. Yet another life was forfeited with a 7 year old with her dad was ramped up on the junction lawn. The junction was invisible with no signs of its existences; this naturally caused many to speed up and unnoticed the curvy lanes mischief. 11:30 in the breezy night a maruti drove fiercely across the notable street; it stopped instantly and enticed the unknown girl into its cabinet wheels. A kidnap was merely witnessed at Gopinath Chowk, the local girl still missing with no evident traces detected. It has watched many yatras, walking every pilgrim to its final rites. Be it traditionally a Ganpati Visarjan or the biggest street rangoli when Maa Devi arrives. It has attended the old man burning in a new year and a live set on the brutal passion of Christ.

During the Hindu Muslim riots in the year 1993, the street was set on flames with mobs and swords of people hunting down religions. Unattended burned bodies and demolished shelters surrounded the city with no officials peeking in.

(Ref:https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/19930131-bombay-riots-unimaginable-violence-leaves-at-least-500-people-dead-810637-1993-01-31)

A social atmosphere of a mass gathering hub universally prevails. Be with difficulty the noble death of Balasaheb Thackery or festive celebrations of Ambedkar Jayanti. The express lanes are filled with bustling humans from every seedy corner and peak.

A settling space for caught destructive spirit in a cut opens crimson lemon and voodoo dolls and a Wednesday ‘caste the demon out’ mandir cautiously makes one watch their steps on a Thursday morning or the dreadful Amavasya day.

I’ve strolled the side street of Mumbai, each a significant belonging. But this particular strives with cases worth solving. Amidst the covid, the familiar streets have replaced local sight. Less of civilized humans, honking cars, the living residing inside. An empty lane with the silent breeze blowing along. Stray dogs and local homeless ordinarily reside with lonesome alley walls. The wailing ambulance heard rushing fiercely for dear life, with the streets being clear just as the crystalline sapphire sky.

It currently waits for the bustling crowd and the musical celebrations to occur abundantly, with the street of light is brightened with boundless hope.