No Entry for Indians and Dogs

This was the sign put up by the empirical British Raj before the grand Taj Mahal hotel built before the Gateway of India. This treatment of Indians is what angered them eventually to revolt against 200 years of undisputed rule and topple the Raj. Today the Gateway of India is a great tourist attraction and a source of pride for the Indian in me. The Taj Hotel now has a modern cousin standing right beside it. Till last year the BMC provided parking near the Gateway for cars for a nominal sum of Rs. 5 per hour. I enjoyed this extremely as I undertook a late night cruise off the Gateway with my wife, then returned to eat at my idols restaurant right next door, ‘Tendulkars’.
This time I went to the Gateway, I noticed my regular parking spot was closed down due to security concerns. Visitors now had to park along the road before the Taj Mahal Hotel. This is not a thoroughfare and not a lot of traffic passes through this road. On this day, there were the usual cars parked along the road. When I noticed an opening fit for my car, I saw it was roped off. Upon asking the parking attendant I was told “This spot is reserved”. I believed him expecting some Mumbai politicians or industrialist would ask to hold the spot. When I moved ahead, to the next spot, I was driven away from there too. It was then that I realized that no politician or dignitary was forthcoming but the spot was reserved for foreign tourists that would be arriving at the spot. The parking attendants would then take off the ropes and relive them of Dollars. Me on the other hand, had to park almost 1.5 Kms away from the Gateway, where I did not ask an attendant to help me. He proceeded to berate me for parking in what I believed was still free Indian Soil. He asked me to return within an hour as he needed the spot. It took every once of my patience to not take a swing at him.
60 years after running the Raj out of the country and destroying every sign that kept out Indians and Dogs, my country men have put those same boards up out of sheer greed. There were plenty of cops around the place but knowing them, I was certain they would be collecting their share of the Dollars at days end and would tow my car away. I took the more cowardly way out of vowing never to return to the site. This will not affect anybody because I was never a source of Dollars for those parking attendants and Cops anyways.
Balasaheb Thackeray, tumchya Mumbai madhye “Mi Marathi” aslyacha dekhil kahi sukh nahi. Tumcha Mumbai kahi Dollars sathi vikla gela aahe.