Mumbai.....
Perhaps my favourite city on this third planet from the sun.
Measure out: one part Hollywood; six parts traffic; a bunch of rich power-moguls; stir in half a dozen colonial relics (use big ones); pour in six heaped cups of poverty; add a smattering of swish bars and restaurants (don’t skimp on quality here for best results); equal parts of mayhem and order; as many ancient bazaars as you have lying around; a handful of Hinduism; a dash of Islam; fold in your mixture with equal parts; throw it all in a blender on high (adding generous helpings of pollution to taste) and presto:Mumbai
The description, above, kind of sums up the upsurge of emotions that the very feel of this city induces in my soul......
When i was, but a proverbial 'bud', this place used to terrify me to no end. The bustle and the confusion seemed like a harbour to malice and darkness.The uncertainty, dwelling the realms beyond the facade of this superficial cacophony, used to stir my heart into turmoil, dissolving the crystals of fear into a vortex of dread.....a fright of the unknown.....
The stereotyped image of the city prevented me from making the most of the time i spent in the city during my childhood and most of my adolescence......The make-believe shenanigans of the city etched a permanent fear for the venom, the city would reserve for my innocence and my deficiency of age....
It wasn't as if i hated the city, in my formative years....The trips used to be as interesting as it gets, hanging around a few adults and doing nothing but watching TV and acting, as if following their bidding. And it was perhaps for these trips and the need for my parents to restrain a precociously exuberant me, that drove them to murder my ebullience, and compose a requiem, as an interring, for the same, that would echo in my ears, warning against the hijras that would kidnap me, mafias that would force me into begging, assassins that were jobless enough to issue shoot at sight orders in their fraternity for me.........and more such depressing stuff.
But the allure for the unknown has been the hallmark of the irrepressible urge of a human for conquest and so it did reflect in my life. Imagining to no end, the existence of an abominable creature-the city itself, forced me to mull over the secrets buried in the womb of this metropolis.
The need to know, gradually overcame fear and i opened up to this city....to love it with all of my heart....
The process, this barricading of inhibitions, might have been excruciatingly slow,but it did come about and i am sincerely thankful to the propellants, that drove me to this new-found enlightenment, one, that promises to forge an association of a lifetime with this throbbing mass of life that is Mumbai......my Mumbai......aamchi mumbai..
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