Saturday, May 16, 2009

On Bombay.

Bombay. I've read about it in novels. Watched movies. I had thought there always was an exaggeration to some extent. I had never let myself believe that one city can touch so many hearts, affect so many lives, or help, not force, people to make decisions that can set lives on entirely new tracks. Never had I believed without some doubt that one city can intoxicate a foreigner to such an extent that he chooses to stay in Bombay, inspite of all the hardships he might have to face and those that he already did, for as long as eight years.

All doubts just melted away. Once I set my foot out of the bus, everything was clear to me. I suddenly knew why. Everything was, and still is, very psychedelic.

I loved the wind on my face. I loved the songs of the people who sing to earn in the trains. The music in their voice is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. And the combination of the wind and their music is something no person can deny not falling in love with. The locals. Standing. Sitting. The wind in the hair. On the face. The sense of freedom. And as Balu once told me, its inevitable. That you begin to like the people, the public, the janta of Bombay has to happen. It just has to. And it did. As I stood in the crowd, with as much as a thousand psi of pressure on my body from every side, I was surprised that it did not bother me. Never did it irk me; the crush on my body which tired me when I was fresh in the morning and tired me even more when I was already tired in the evening. The experience was all that it took to bring me out of my tired sub-conscious slumber.

I loved walking alone. Walking on the streets. Along the opposite lane. Against the traffic of pedestrians. Observing people, their faces as every other face dons a different expression. Its beautiful how sometimes an expression worn by a random person on a street might not even remotely resemble that on anyone till as far as the next corner. Walking, wandering, roaming around aimlessly, hence is something else that I loved doing in Bombay. Whether it be the streets, the galis or the wide roads of the Marine Drive. There is a smell, a very distinct smell which I've never sensed anywhere in India except here, in Bombay. Some say its that of the sea. I say its that of freedom. You step in Bombay and you feel that you can do almost anything. My work is not what one would call intense but it sure as hell does tire me. But as I get out and walk; as I travel in the locals, I feel as new and fresh as one would, after having a pizza and a beer. The atmosphere has that effect on you which heroin would have on a junkie.

I loved Shantaram. So I was all boing-boing over Leopold's. Such awesomeness! Getting high on the ambience that the place so generously throws and wondering what it would have been like in Sir Gregory David Robert's time. Getting to see a photograph of him on his very own Bullet and knowing that he was in Bombay just three days before itself is an adrenaline pump and just as big as it would have been to Shantaram, when he would have been on his bike, speeding on the roads of Bombay. The place, as you enter, grips your mind and hurls it in a pit, an abyss, not dark but a bright one, where all the happiness and hope and belief and faith in the world are held together by bonds making the pit one huge pit of light. It frees the mind of all worries. Not just a-bar by the way. Such is the magic of Leopold's.
This city is just beyond me. In a extremely positive way. I just love it. And I still have a week and a half in the city before I head back to Nagpur which, after this episode, is definitely going to give me a huge suicidal depression. But that's still a week and a half away. So well, life's good.

P.S. : To all those who have lived and are still living in Bombay, I envy you all. I'm jealous and I'll always be jealous.







7 comments:

Aggie M said...

Nice pics :)
and she's so got you now!!

Nikhil said...

Dude !! Easily one of the best blog posts i have ever come across ( and not bcos my name is in it :D )BUT bcos ur insight on the city i live in has left me spellbound ! And ya , the pics ... did u take them ?? Anyways amazing pics , amazing post ! Do relish the several 'other' flavors which Mumbai ( the cocktail called 'lIFE') has to offer in the rem. time you have before you crash land in Nagpur and spiral into SUICIDAL DEPRESSION ( :P )for good.

Such! said...

Hey! I dont knw what happened, but i commmented first, and now its not there!! :( Im shattered. It was this huge comment. :(

Anyways, Bombay, yes!! Amazing thing about Bombay - flaws=beauty. Once you tap this thing every other place seems like arid desert.

PS:Here for an internship??

And Nice Pics!!

Where did my comment go? :(

Tyrant said...

Hmmm..so the urban flavour has hit you too..Having lived a leisurely country life in Bhavnagar,I hope you were'nt left gaping with your mouth wide open on the streets of Bombay..:D..Leaving the bitch inside me,nice post!!

Bombay Times Headline:Prolific Blogger hits city,glorifies it amazingly..

cheers,

girish

William Deng-Deng K. said...

@ Weasel : Thanks! and yes. she's so got me. :)

@ Balu : thanks dude. this city's beyond me. "it rules" times googol. :P

@ Suchi : oh. long comment gone. sad. :( and this city's so awesome i might even have mistaken the flaws for not-flaws. beautiful. and thanks. :)

@ Tyrant : ha ha! yeah man. after bhavnagar and nagpur, this is something totally alien to me. its far out. :)

Raahul said...

So one more guy who fell in love with Mumbai !! It sure is one hell of a city. From the coutless amazing eateries (Leopold is one of the best !!) to the city that never sleep tag, everything in Mumbai is freaking cool !! Gr8 tat u got the experience of it bro, especially of the local trains / buses and crowds...

William Deng-Deng K. said...

@ Bro : yeah! Leopold's gigacool! and so is everything else.