Salaam Bombay!

In past few days, I could relate very well to what Steve Jobs said about love,

If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of heart, you'll know when you find it and like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

My first impression of Bombay was from bollywood. Growing up in tier 2 cities, I saw Bombay only in TV. As a child, I was scared of Bombay. It was a land of tricksters. It was a land where people would go to become Amitabh Bacchan and disappear somewhere. The ugly Bombay of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ full of deep shit, land of haftavasooli, and child abuse, it will always shake me to the core. I still remember the time when Gulshan Kumar assassination happened; I was so scared to see the news on the TV. I never wanted to go to Bombay. Life in my small quaint city was good. Bombay was not real.It existed in idiot-box always.

The twenty four year old me landed in Bombay for the first time. It was a halt for half a day. The only thing that caught my notice was women getting down from bus a 12.30 am. It surprised me. I am so used to stay in state of terror in the national capital or for that matter in my home town also. I have had never smelled air of freedom. How does it feel like to roam at night? I kept looking at the woman from my window and slept with the question in my head,’ How does it feel to roam at night?’ That question erased my hatred for Bombay.  My sub-conscious was getting to know the answer.

I returned to Bombay after five years. Walking alone with my suit-case, I came out of Bombay- Central station. The narrow slim roads, and high rise buildings and sea-link, Bombay I was in love this time. The taxi driver started narrating me the story of how he found his life in Bombay. He came to the city some thirty years back as a laborer and never wanted to go back to his village in Uttar Pradesh. He just quipped, ‘Madam dilliwalon ko Bombay mein kaafi accha lagta hai.’ I smiled and was thinking ‘I am not dilliwali, I am from Uttar Pradesh. We have the same story.I am in Delhi for the same reason, you are in Bombay. Just that I am not in love with Delhi.’

After our run in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, I had the first vada paao of my life with Thumbs-up. I posed and got clicked with Thums-up. The little kid in me sang, ‘Thums-up the taste that thunders.’ It rained cats and dogs. She and I ran to catch our local to Chhatraapati Shivaji Terminus. This had become a daily routine. My Bombay friends will often ask me,’ why do you take the train to CST every day? What do you do at Colaba? Is this what you took leave for?’

After tying that religious wish thread in Haji Ali on the first day of Ramzan, She and I sat at marine drive. Life has so many questions. That big wave washed them away. No I did not get the answers for my questions. It was like that grandmother’s soothing touch on the head which reassured,’ It will be allright.’  To my left was young couple sitting holding hands, chatting and kissing in between; to my right were youngsters,probably celebrating their new job; at the back was Trident,  where the  elite stopped.’ Bombay is so slim, it accommodates all in so much less space. People sit so dangerously close to each other, in the trains, at marine drive. Same is the case with cars. A friend says, if Bombay had infrastructure of Delhi, life would have been so good.True but then love is unconditional. I embrace Bombay with all its stink, humidity and terrible traffic.

After that customary  halt at Leopald, we again took a taxi back to Powai. It was 12 midnight. Of the best things in life, Bombay has offered me that smell of freedom and that sense of association with everyone around . Words cannot do justice to small joys of life. 

Bombay, you are my latest love. It is not the love at first sight but the one which grows with time.

 I will be back soon.