Now that the movie Once Upon a Time in Mumbai, about the city's underworld has released amongst much controversy, here is what actually happened Once Upon a Time in Mumbai.

Once upon a time in Mumbai

We could go to the movies for Rs 20 a ticket and spend Rs 10 on samosas and Rs 10 on a popcorn packet while touts would murmur outside in a sinister, hush-hush manner, "70 rupees mein black.'' Beggars would actually be happy with the Re 1 you gave them and not look like you are entitled to give them a blue-chip share instead.

u00a0People bought six packs of beer and never knew what six-pack abdomens were (John Abraham style) besides being similarly clueless about what a 'size zero' was

Nobody thought tapori Mumbai lingo like: 'patli galli pakad', 'jhakaas' or 'item' or even 'raapchick' would become cult favourites.

The runway simply meant a place from where airplanes took off, not a ramp on which waif-like women with osteoporosis, (so thin and brittle they look) pouty lips and strange clothes sashayed, while half the city panted for an invite to these fashion shows.

The only 'maals' people saw were those voluptuous vamps giving shirtless villains like Prem Chopra, Ajit (Mona Darling) and Amjad Khan a massage in movies but today a mall means a place to eat overpriced food at a food court and shop for designer clothes.

Getting your children into school did not mean intense stress levels, high BP and cardiac conditions like blocked arteries resulting in an angioplasty as admission day neared.

A flat in the city's toniest South Mumbai area would go for Rs 3 Lakh (gasp, gasp) and South Mumbai's swish clubs like Willingdon offered the much-coveted life memberships at Rs 5,000 that too, payable in installments. Page 3 was just another page in a book, newspaper or magazine and not a description of a person.

and filmmakers called Madhur Bhandarkar did not make movies on such people. People thought that RTI always stood for Ratan Tata Institute on Hughes Road where you went to buy baby clothes and Parsi-style embroidered nightwear and not Right To Information to dig out dope on corrupt deals.

Your English teacher would scoff at this junk you are reading saying, "think of all the trees being chopped down to print the rubbish this columnist has written and here you are wasting time reading it" and you would hang your head in shame instead of laughing like you are doing now.