Taxi! Taxi! Taxi! Taxi?

Bombay is known for overflowing with taxis, but as of last night, a large majority of taxis are out of commission. You see, there is a fuel shortage in Bombay. As of yesterday, the drivers of the tanker trucks that bring fuel into the city went on strike. And already, gas stations are running dry. The taxis over here run on something called CNG and all the places that sell CNG are completely out, so the taxis are running on whatever they have left in their tank. In this morning's Times of India, the President of the Taximen's Union said that 70% of the 55,000 taxis in Bombay were already off the roads.
After dinner last night, even we went to fill up our car. While my family was waiting in line, I got out to take photos. This gas station was one of the few 24-hour stations in downtown Bombay. When we got in line, we thought we'd be there for at least an hour, but we were actually there for roughly 40 minutes, which gave me enough time to walk around and shoot.
They actually had to get police in to direct traffic and make sure fuel transactions were happening on the up and up.

There was a freeway overpass right next to the gas station. I told my cousin that that would be the best place to go take a photo. We went without telling anybody, because if they had known we were walking on the side of the freeway, they would have killed us. But it was the photo I wanted, with the cars lined up, entering the gas station.


Before all this gas shortage stuff, we went and had dinner at the Radio Club, which our family has a membership to. The thing is, it is right down the road from the Taj Hotel. When Rahim and I were done with dinner, we took a walk down the block to go see the Taj and the Gateway of India. Even for 10:30 at night, it was completely empty. They had just reopened the road in front of the Taj but there was still barely any traffic. The huge open area, where the media had set up during the attacks, was empty.

Security was visible. There were barricades surrounding the Gateway and there were barricades lining the Taj. Believe it or not, but they actually had a cop at the back entrance. Whether he was armed or not, I do not know. But nobody gave me any problems taking photos of the Gateway or Taj.

I don't know how much I'll be able to do in the next few days with the gas shortage. Taxis aren't running and there's only so much gas we have in the car. Will probably have to walk everywhere, which will limit the distance I can go. My aunt is so worried that this strike will go on for 10 days, she wants me to call Jet Airways and see if they have some sort of pick-up service to the airport in case we don't have gas to go to the airport next Saturday night.

We'll soon find out.

Oh, and how bout them Gators?!? Got up early this morning to watch the Gators roll over the Sooners. Two titles in three years. It was a good game. Both defenses played well. But the Sooners run defense vanished in the 2nd half and Sam Bradford, although he had a good completion percentage, just never looked comfortable. I think the Sooners really missed DeMarco Murray. I bet if the Heisman voters could vote again, and take into consideration the entire season, with what Tim Tebow was able to do, what he was able to promise, he'd have won the Heisman and not Bradford. Bradford had a great season and I really like him (if you go back almost a year and half ago in this very blog, you'll see that I predicted Bradford would win this year) but Tebow should have won the Heisman, even without today's game. He just proved that he is the single best and most important player in college football, and that he is the biggest game-changing player in the game.

Alright, well, hope everybody has a good night. I'm waiting for Rahim to come home and then we are gonna go get some lunch.

Take it easy,
Ali