Chapter I - Jab we met || An ode to Bombay

"An ode to Bombay" is a mini series I intend to write and share here for two primary reasons - 

1. To get back into the habit of writing 

2. To document how the city made me feel

(Disclaimer - This is mostly a fictional travelogue. Although, it is a first person account not everything here is a true account of my life especially the characters in my story. Any resemblance to you or anyone you know is absolutely coincidental. That being said a lot of it certainly is inspired by real life experiences of people I know and myself.) 

As always, look forward to your thoughts and criticism on this if you get through to the last line. Would want to know if it's absolutely terrible too, so do leave me a note. 

Chapter I - Jab we met

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The first time I arrived in Bombay as a tourist, in the third decade of my life, I knew what it meant when people looked at me in part-horror, part-disbelief every time  they heard me say - "I have never been to Bombay". Fresh off an airplane from New York, stepping out into this warm humid city, they called "India's New York" at almost midnight, I did not know what to expect but I was glad that finally for the rest of my life I wasn't going to shock people with "I have never been to Bombay" any longer. I found strange relief in that. 

Growing up books, movies, people glamorized Bombay in ways that were attractive beyond the display of wealth in the South Bombay skyscrapers or the modernization that came with the city's women's shortest of shorts or larger than life haircuts. The inherent romance of Bombay rains stirred in my teenager heart a longing. Longing for places I had never been to, people I had never met and rains I had never felt on my skin. The brilliant photography of the marine drive, the bird's eye view of the city, the ocean waves splashing the shores and the people relentlessly, treating everyone equal; an Indian city with a skyline, the TV and Bollywood's portrayal of Bombay was the only Bombay I knew. 

For I had Calcutta, the city I lived and breathed and took with me wherever I went and I knew no real people from Bombay after-all. What good could they be anyway? 

Because I had Calcutta and what more could one need I questioned myself? When I moved to America a decade back, the part of not knowing any real people from Bombay changed forever. 

I met a guy and then I met several others. Maharashtrians, not Maharashtrians. People who walked and talked Bombay, the Bombay-ites, the Mumbaikars, people from the Bombay suburbs, Bombay marwaris, Bombay Gujaratis, the Pune-it's, the people from Nasik and Solapur who introduced themselves as being from Bombay, the girl from a small town in UP who at the young age of 19 had left home to make it big in the city of dreams, that thoroughbred Calcuttan who had moved to Bombay to study and sold her soul to the city, announcing with pride how much she loved Bombay. I met all these people and then some more. But that first guy I met, lived and breathed Bombay just like I did Calcutta and when we fell in love, it was like two cities, nothing like each other,  colliding. It lasted not too long and went up in flames but the burning embers scorched tissues, bones and dreams for a long time to come. This Bombay love of mine and I had made uncountable plans of traveling to Mumbai and Kolkata and many other cities together, none of which to our utter dismay ever happened. 

But more than half a decade later, here I was boarding a plane to go to this new city all by myself. 

A friend's sister and her husband met me at the airport and drove me to their apartment in Santa Cruz. This is where I would live for the next couple of days. I quickly changed, ate a bite and called it a night. But the jet lag had kicked in and I lay awake all night trying my best to catch the quiet sounds of a sleeping city. Sometime in the wee hours I must have fallen asleep, for I awoke with a jolt. There was loud rain pelting on the windows panes. Ah! The famous Bombay rains, I thought to myself and craned my neck without moving my body to look out of the tiny window above my head, to catch my first glimpse of this fabled city. 

Fresh washed gorgeous green leaves and bright smiling red petals of a Gulmohar tree in bloom, sounds of chirpy crows and bulbuls, the noise of the downpour splashing on the tin roofs below, everything a verdant green, like new life had been breathed into every leaf. My first look of Bombay was a movie, a painting, an orchestra all of it together and to say she had caught my attention would be a gross understatement. Bombay already had my heart. 

Nagazeer (Foregone)

Guzra kal, gaya hua waqt, ateet - kabhi hamara peecha nahi chhodta

Kabhi andheri raat toh kabhi maachis ki ek lau si lautti hai
kabhi jala kar raakh toh kabhi peepal ke chhaon si sehlati hai
Main sochti hun zeaef nabz kahaan rakhi hogi tumne meri
Gobhi ke pakodon waali shaam toh yaad hogi?

Hans-hans ke mukammal giye the jo vaade tumne
aaj bhi unki mehek kisi kamre mein toh hogi?
Kabhi jhande si lehrayi gayi, kabhi cheezon jaisi ek kone padhi main
mez, chatai aur kursiyon se baatein karti thi.

Main thi bhi ya na thi, mashkuk hun main
Lekin Mohabbat thi, ye itimad hai mujhe

Intolerance

I wish this world would see

Just how much of an evil it is

To stereotype or

Ask with horror or disbelief

That innocent statement – “I don’t understand”

Not so innocent after all

To teach your children to fear

All things you are not -

Muslim, Gay, Black or Queer

“What, what? Did you say Pakistani?”

“Did you say she married her?”

Oh well! - “I don’t understand,

I think this world is weird.”

Dad says – “You are more than a son to me”

Why is that ‘more than’ there?

Mom says – “I love you but what will people say”

Why is that ‘but’, but there?

Oh can’t you see, oh don’t you see

You are bringing up a whole generation that ‘fears’

Under the veil of hate. 

The weary traveler

And just like that one day, with her big doe eyes, her beautifully draped sarees and the flickering nose ring she took him away. 

"She wears short skirts, I wear tee shirts", everytime I heard Taylor Swift play on the radio, I would think just how shallow and inane that is. It sure does take more than looking hot or smiling pretty to steal a man's heart. Doesn't it? Except, it does not. 

To be honest, I'm not bitter any longer. Or angry. I was, when I first found out. But now only the last burning ambers of pain remain. Also, this whole episode taught me more things about my character than it did about his. It made me realize that my self esteem was easily shaken. That my cloak of self-confidence was as flimsy as a bubble of soap. That I put the onus of being made to feel like I was the best, in my partner all the time, without doing anything to be the best. That whether I accept it or not, my life was a constant competition of looking better, sounding smarter, loving more, feeling more than everyone else. And last but not the least, the more you try to chase something, the more it will continue to elude you.

Our lives today are a joke. We are all running in a scorching hot desert, the sand burning our feet. None of us know where to or why? Everyone is, so are we. Finding someone to love and be loved in return is like finding an oasis in this never ending desert. You can well imagine how rare and precious that is. So, when we find it, we sit down and rest and suddenly everything is so perfect and green and it's raining. It's raining love, smiles and happiness and we are enjoying our siesta. Then suddenly, we are woken up and we see everyone around us is running. Where to or why? We ask ourselves. We have no answers. But we think everyone is, so, I must. And now that we have once found an oasis, we are convinced, there lies more and may be more beautiful, more green. So, once again, we run. 

But oases in deserts are far and few, mirages are plenty. And we are all but weary travelers. 

The lost "you"

You "break-up", and you "move-on". You meet someone again and fall in love and life goes on. So, technically speaking, you just get up one day, cast something old away, something that is not working any more and replace it with something new, something that works. As simple as one, two, three. Except, it's not. With every break up in life, at least two people (and I say at least two because in many situations there are also other lives affected) lose a part of themselves. A part they can never have back. You can burn all bridges and hate each other with all your might or you can make peace and choose to remain civil and/or become "friends". It doesn't matter which path you take; on a fine summer evening in June, you will find yourself sitting on your porch, watching the sun go down and no matter how happy you are in life today, no matter how much you are loved, you will miss a moment, a word, a nickname, a hug, a voice, a smile, a "you" that you once had. A "you", you can never have back. 

And in that moment, If you find tears rolling down your cheeks, at the helplessness of knowing how you can never have that you back any more, smile. Smile because how lucky were you that you met and journeyed together in life with someone so beautiful, they brought out a whole new person in you. A person so unique, that even you can't recreate it again. That's love, that's magic that only a lucky few can experience. 

Devi, Maa aur sainkro naam

yeh samundar meri khamoshiyon ki awaaz hai 

tat par aaakar toot-ti lehren mere dil ka ek-ek alfaaz hai 

tune mutthi mein jo band kar rakkhe hain

mere bikhre sapno ke moti 

woh laakar lauta de aaj mujhe 

main piroun phir woh maala 

apni komal ungliyon se

Chhil de jinko woh kathor dhaga 

Khoon se lathpath ho jaanghe meri 

sharm se nat nat ho mera maatha 

tu mandir jaa, kar pooja devi ki 

ghar wapas aa, phir kar mujhko aadha. 

From the Ghost of the Valentine's Past

Slowly, little by little I can't remember the smell of your skin anymore 

Or how the skin at the edge of your nose crinkled, when I planted a sleepy kiss on your forehead. 

Sometimes I wake up and stand at the edge of the bed 

tracing the contours of your body with imaginary lines in my head 

But I have lost the points and the exact color of your skin, I just can't recall any more. 

I want to stay there some more until I can remember 

But you are not there, you are not there any more. 

And slowly little by little, this house has lost your smell. 

And since you are gone - The walls, the television, the sofa, the chair & the tables don't quite call out your name anymore. 

But they remember me, they remember my name and every morning and evening, all day and all night, they look for me, they call out my name...but they can't find me. 

They call out, they search for me everywhere, they scream for me..but they can't find me. 

They can't find me anywhere. 

Because... 

since you are gone, 

I'm not me anymore.