est

the downside of belonging everywhere, is belonging nowhere.

i have a feeling that i’m going to like bombay. everything just seems so much more intense here. it’s like a city of superlatives. people are busier. poverty is poorer. the stink is stinkier. the glamorous, somehow even shinier. the industrious even more hard-working. the parties, more laid back and more fun. the gods more perfect. the crowds bigger and more magnificent, than elsewhere (they demand attention. and sometimes, shock and awe. they are a collective. and most politicians in bombay have learnt to harness that power. the power of a crowd that only thinks and feels in superlatives). and the contrasts will constantly hit you on your face.

it’s like people are more involved with life. like they share a personal equation with it. like they need to squeeze it of very last bit of what it has to offer. like they can’t bear to be short changed. they can’t bear to be in the sidelines. and they won’t let you stand there too. you have to be there, in the thick of it. in the midst of a mad crowd. you have to be there, racing against time. being pushed and jostled. you have to be there, breathing the air, heavy with fumes and the slightly salty, slightly decaying whiff of the sea. you have to be there, playing by their rules or yours, but playing the game.

and every once in a while, you can stop to take a breather, by the edge of the sea. where the city leaves you be. where the winds blow through your body. where for a brief fragile moment you can straddle the space, between a world you belong to, and a world you don’t and be perfectly content.