To Mumbai, with love.. (written while travelling by train from Mumbai to Delhi.. bidding the city Goodbye)

  The trees pass you by, just like time. Time is relentless. No one stops to let you feel the moment, the sudden sense of loss; it jostles and pushes you ahead.
  I'm trying to write and it is difficult. It was not just another city, another experience. It was something deeper, and yet, it was so simplified. Mumbai is more than any other city, any other experience. Maybe you will not notice its greatness in the daily struggles. You need to pause, once in a while. Look back. When you do, you'll realise its greatness, even with all the embellishments of imperfection etched on it. Even with the terrible traffic, the dirtiest potholes, the soaring human population, the ruthlessness.. you can either love Mumbai or fail to understand it. This city is like a parent who urges his child to learn the biggest lesson of survival.
  I distinctly remember the day i first visited the local train station. As I stood on the overbridge, I saw a sea of people hurrying ahead, nudging forward, while the train below was overburdened with people and still lunging ahead. I'm sure that a few moments before the train blasts happened, the scene must have been the same.This city has been ripped apart, time and again, by acts of utter heartlessness. But Mumbai is always back on its feet in almost no time. Not because people are not afraid.Not because they think it can only happen to 'others'. It is because they are too well aware of the criss-cross of life and death each moment of their lives, and they 'choose' to rise above their fears.This city's heart is brave, incomparable. Standing on the overbridge that day,I felt grateful for the life I have.Each moment that you breathe becomes precious, and that's when you start understanding life more closely..
  Mumbai does not impose any rules on you .. rules about right and wrong, rules about how you should live and how you should not, about morality.. it lets your sensibilities prevail on this. You decide what is right, or wrong, you decide what your choices are, because no one is going to question your perceptions. Only time and again it'll hold up a mirror to you, and you will have to answer yourself. It will let you become what you choose to be, just as much as it will let you hold on to your true self if you so desire. This city does not bind you in shackles, it liberates you.. brings out the best and the worst in you,brings out your individuality, instead of moulding you into a 'Roman' just because you are in 'Rome'. It is due to this that the city has a vibrance, where people bring forward their uniqueness without compromise and you begin to understand the 'human' that you are.. the flesh and blood, the vulnerabilities, the strengths, the fear, the entire amalgamation of raw emotions that you are made up of.
  This city exudes a sense of fairness, even in your day-to-day life. Even if you work extremely hard here, you enjoy it. Such is the impassivity to pain that failures only give you a reason to hold on to your grit a little more, and then a little more. No one teaches you all this. You learn, and you don't even realize when . You imbibe the pulse of this city into your being, little by little. Now as I leave it does not hold me back. I feel as if it is pushing me away, farther and farther,urging me to let go, before I can fully comprehend how much I stand to lose..

After all, "the show must go on"...

Of Troubles and Beyond

So a friend of mine asks me this profound question  - "Why (Read - Why the hell) are there so many troubles in life?"
This one is for you my friend..

Okay agreed, problems are no good.I mean, who needs them?? Unless you are so bored by the overdose of happiness in your life.. but then does that happen to anyone?
The one thing that really distressed me since childhood was my mother's illness.. and I have hoped for something good to happen for years even as I watched her deteriorate  everyday. It didn't happen, it wouldn't anyway.

To be honest, I have worked this out for myself. I feel you've got to make the best of what you have. So there's no point in wasting time.I treat life's troubles as  natural phenomena, just like how the sun rises and sets everyday. It will happen, you can't stop it.. even if you wish to.

I mean, we always speak from our perspective. Think about God.. He has a job cut out for Him that He probably hadn't even asked for. And then if the God in question doesn't enjoy solving people's problems much like I don't enjoy solving Shakuntala Devi's puzzles, then the least we can do is sympathize :P He may wish to get a new hairdo, check out a different cuisine or become a style icon (having carefully analysed the immense popularity they enjoy). And to think that all we do is give Him the same kind of clothes, same hairstyle,and even make Him pose the same way year after year. So probably while he's in the middle of scripting someone's life, suddenly, he just gets bored with the evenness of it all. Hence he just tweaks the story and adds some spice to His otherwise mundane life.
Can we blame Him??!

You see, He's just playing His game, you are just playing yours.
It's nothing personal!

P.S - ok i know this post is weird  :D

A Moment Of Thought....

I should ideally sleep RIGHT NOW!! Feeling too tired to think .. or write. But there's a feeling inside me that I want to put down in words before I lose it. After a long time I can say for sure that I'm happy. Not that I'm satisfied or feeling complete .. but yes I can feel the happiness. There are pros and there are cons, there are things I like and things I don't like about my life . There are situations I willingly accept and situations that are best forgotten. Yes, all this is true. But there is a joy in living and I'm certain I feel it..

Dont ask me why 'cause I probably don't know. But when I read this one particular evening several months later, tired and exhausted after work, I know for sure I'll smile and that moment will be precious.

So you see, it was important to pen this down :))

............

I'm hating this , all of it. A feeling of nothingness .. like a lack of something creative has rendered the brain, the body and even the spirit useless .. a cheap state of existence that has no meaning .. Has the blood turned cold ? Am i even alive? If i pinch myself i dont feel a thing .. except a form of pain that has no consequences .. It doesn't ignite a will to retaliate , and even if i do it's more because it's customary to do so .. and not because of an animal urge to put things back in order...

I want to feel the thirst to be loved , and to love back, with a rawness and fervour that would awaken my senses. I want to yield to torture , I want someone to break me .. and along with it this facade of maturity , sense and perfection .. I want to be human again , imperfect again, someone who would laugh and cry , someone who is replete with emotions , fervent and spontaneous .. Sometimes I feel experience is a bad thing, it kills the spontaneity.. it teaches you to react in particular ways. The bad thing - it teaches you .. trains you , thus turning you into someone who is correct but not you .. or so i feel.

There is no happiness and there is no pain.. a dullness has seeped in , and quietened the gush of blood in my veins .. It feels like my senses have abandoned me. There has to be something that would defeat this dullness. Come, someone come and defeat me .. drive me insane in a flash ... let me escape to extremities ...

The Heart Is Homeward Bound ...

"That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where.." - A Crazed Girl, W.B Yeats


Do you sometimes feel this irresistible urge to tear yourself away from all your ties and connections, and shut yourself up .. in vacuum.. ? I do (and I hope it doesn't sound like madness, though if it does , so be it). Where there are no other voices , except your own ; where you are the solitary creature who speaks and listens at the same time. You can no longer suppress the noises in your soul , they become so audible suddenly.

It was a crazy day for me. Nothing happened. Except that I just felt crazy , for no practical reasons. I was just looking for something I guess.. frantically , and I didn't know what it was, or where. The whole day was an ordeal to say the least. Initially i felt uncontrollably wild , feeling infuriated at the slightest provocation , probably even no provocation at all. Then I just became quiet . And the fact remains that nothing had happened.

So I came back home.. No, I think I staggered back home . Next I locked myself up in vacuum. Complete silence. For a few moments I searched for that answer , in the innermost recesses of my being..trying to figure out the unfathomable cravings of my heart - and then,I suddenly knew it.

You know how a child cries and throws tantrums for his/her favourite toy in the store? He MUST have it , and no reasoning or justification would suffice. As for me, though I'm ashamed to admit it, it is the unquenching thirst for love. Maybe the warmth of home is what the heart pines for, and is being refused , time and again. And that makes it go wild. This time too , no reasoning or justification will suffice.

In a way maybe I knew the answer all along , but suppressed it till the noise within me grew louder. Now that I know it , and admit it , the noise will choke me till I respond.

Looking Back...

Yesterday was a pretty bad day. It was freezing here, with temperatures as low as -5 deg C . To add to it, the icy cold winds did no good either. No doubt I'm glad I survived it. You won't believe if i told you that inspite of all this, I was 'thinking' while I walked back home. I guess my mind works in extreme conditions!

I was thinking of the times when I led a sheltered life, surrounded by my very own people - people who would send me off to a doctor each time I had a sore throat or fever (and that was pretty often). People who would stand by you through rain and sunshine, believe in your goodness and ignore your follies. People who made life seem like a dream. That must have been ages back , because life has surely changed since then. I remember the first time i recognised
my thirst to venture out into the world by myself - the independent streak in me coming alive. Now when I think of it, at times I cant help feeling that it was a ludicrous decision - I was so gullible then. However defying all reason and logic, I did venture out, right after my school-leaving. Perhaps then I didn't have the slightest inkling how difficult, or absolutely impossible , it would be to return to my roots someday. Ever since then I'm struggling to turn unknown houses into homes, absolute strangers into bosom-buddies, and to instill a sense of belongingness wherever I go. And then once in a while there dawns a fine morning which makes you realize that unknown houses don't become homes and that you know your buddies no more than any other stranger walking down the streets.

So on and so forth , the years go by, sometimes hastily, sometimes painstakingly slow. Little by little it erodes our faith away. And whatever remains is stashed away in a corner of our hearts that is inaccessible to anyone else, perhaps even to ourselves.

So like I said, the times have changed. Nowadays, no one asks me to see a doctor every time I get fever. Nowadays I'm not as gullible. I try to stand by people during their times of rain and sunshine, and try not to expect it in return (though I confess it feels mighty good when they do). Needless to say, nowadays life is not a dream . Perhaps you're right, i've just grown up..

But then, the thought of turning unknown houses into homes , of finding friends among strangers .. I still hold on to these ethereal dreams .. I still yearn for that sense of belongingness wherever I go..

Well, Life's like that ...

A Saturday Morning ..

I love my room in the city . It's at a level high enough to blur out the reality , but not so high that you lose touch with your surroundings.. and when you look right ahead you can see so much of the sky. For those who know , that's quite a thing in Mumbai. Every morning when the sun first wakes me up, i instantly get drawn towards the window .. perhaps i love the way the first light of morning hurts my eyes , and urges me to start living without wasting another moment. I can't help smiling then , because it's yet another new morning , leaving behind the cold , dark night. If it's a Saturday,i have the luxury of not having to count the minutes i spend by the window, gazing at oblivion and dreaming of things that'll never be . It gives me a sense of freedom. My circumstances may make me accept the things as they really are , even though i don't really like it that way .. but it's fascinating how no person , nothing can bind your soul into shackles , no one can touch the inner core that MUST soar high.. Such are my Saturday mornings ..
I dream of the impossible . Even though i know it's just that - 'impossible' , it's my way of looking at Life straight in the eye and saying that im not giving up ,not just yet..
While i'm caught between the realms of reality and fantasy, my eyes wander to several floors below me to find a group of children playing .I don't remember what they call that game , but I think I've played that as a child. I remember how i would run back home , dancing to some tune i learnt in school that day , my happy little feet covered with dust and dirt. Then how while washing them the first splash of cold water would feel so soothing. That was so many years back . Now here I am , watching a group of kids prance around before my eyes , who probably forget each other's names every now and then , but claim to be good friends. I sometimes wonder how easy it is for us to make friends when we are so young. Every person who was of our age group or dimensions would become our friend. There was no need to understand , observe or otherwise ascertain his/her credibility as a friend. There was even no need to contemplate upon the meaning of 'friendship' .. perhaps it came naturally to us then. And to think how ironical it is , that today as grown-ups, when we truly learn to understand relationships , appreciate the meaning of friendship , we can no longer find friends easily . It's funny how relationships begin to elude you almost at the same time as when you begin to value them...

There are moments in your life that make you want to cherish the little you have and crave to turn them into big celebrations. This is one such moment - and it goes out to all those people who COULD have been elusive , but RATHER chose to stay , to all my friends and foes alike ...!