this is my pen-ultimate day in Mumbai....the city where I was born, raised and cultured...I thought I would feel really sad and wretched thinking that I would be leaving Mumbai...but somehow that doesn't happen...
The last 20 days I have rushed to every nook and corner of this city that I have loved, cherished and even nurtured...right from Marine Drive via Kalbadevi...towards Girgaum....Haji Ali...then "aamcha Dadar"...and on the central side...the entire stretch from Sion to Thane...it always felt like "my personal space" in this crowded city!
And thats funny too...this adjective associated with Mumbai..."crowded"...I remember watching a movie where someone said..."we come to mumbai...become a part of the crowd...and then say Mumbai is crowded..." how true!
The point is ...for the past few days...i left no stone unturned to capture all the places, moments and emotions associated with this city...travelled in crowded trains like the collg days...ate vada-pav off the streets and gobbled countless paani puris...fought with the bus conductors for change and had heated altercations with vegetable vendors while bargaining...each and everything which essentially reflects the true nature of a Mumbaikar - "middle-class and bourgeois"--something that I am extremely proud of. And I did this to bank all the memories of this city....
But today as I stand on the brink of flying away...I feel nothing...so sadness, no feeling of separation..nothing at all...as I was coming back in the auto today...I pondered and realised that I feel nothing...which is queer...I should have felt sad, right? but I guess, that it is because i know that Mumbai is not going anywhere away from me...I am the bearer of it's essence and I would be carrying it in my behaviour, my culture, my ethics, my mind... just as my name, my finger prints are my indelible identities...so is my being Mumbaikar!
When I was a child, I always thought I should have been born in some developed country like USA or may be France...but two days ago, when I stood at the edge of Mumbai..on Marine Drive,,,with my back to the city and staring at the Arabian Sea, holding the bouncing reflection of the city lights....I realised I could not have been born elsewhere...I would not have survived...it's indeed my luck...that this city took me in!
Yeh hai Mumbai meri jaan !!!!
1 comment:
There is just no city in the world like Mumbai. No amount of luxury, amenities, cleanliness can compensate for the soul of this city.
This city has given is so much..our personalities, moods, behavior has all be shaped by living in Mumbai..
Ae dil hai mushkil jeena yaha..zara hatke, zara bachke.......
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