Moments:

I’ve always wanted to cycle down an empty road with the mountains in the distance and along a rolling meadow…perhaps picking wild flowers on the way. When I went with J and a group of fellow enthusiast to cycle in the interiors of villages near Malshej Ghat, I realized that reality was not that easy or romantic. The gently undulating road passing through stretches of yellowed field with the hills in the distant was straight out of my dream. But covering even a stretch of 5kms on a geared-cycle was too much for me. My head spun like a top and my knees buckled. With age and no exercise, some dreams should be left at that…..a dream.

The next day however, I managed to salvage my crushed dream and rode 15kms downhill on the fantastic stretch of Malshej Ghat. The clouds kept rolling in and out and the wind was high…tearing through my hair as I reached a speed of 45km per hour zipping around bends.

I’m waiting for the rains to come and to go there again. Its beautiful at this time….I can only imagine just how breathtaking it would be when it pours and washes everything clean.

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The yellowed leaves fluttered down from the tree outside my window. The sun was golden and a lazy breeze carried them far away. I suffered again a bout of nostalgia, remembering my childhood days. Wonder if ever life will give me another chance to be as carefree as I was some three decades ago.

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Why doesn’t it feel weird to actually dream of my own death?

The Winter Romance:

I love it when the days are bright and sparklingly sunny; the sky a perfect blue with not a single puff of cloud. And the wind so freezing that it opens every nerve cell in your body. The Earth seems happier, the people brighter, thousands of stars light up the night sky and the moon's light is razor sharp. There’s a strange hope in every heart and a twinkle in every eye… Happiness takes on a different meaning then and you just have to spread your arms wide open and feel the beauty that is life.

I love it when the days are dark, cloudy and wet; when the nights get masked by the silently swirling fog…as if one is traveling through a fairy land. Two sweaters, one overcoat, woolen socks and even a muffler don't dispel the cold one bit. That one cup of hot coffee at a friend's place on a day like that, secures the bond more firmly than hundred cups of coffee on any other day. And coming back home shivering to your family, to be tucked under a blanket with hot chicken soup… the conversations can be nothing other than warm.

My favourite season - Winter. Maybe the universe knew how badly I would miss it this time and gave Mumbai one of its coldest winters and me a lot more hope.

God and I:

The driver of the taxi was an elderly Muslim. I wanted to ask him what he thought of Tata’s Nano but somehow the conversation digressed to religion. He told me of an instance where God saved him from certain death when he was caught by a rioting mob. His faith in his God was unbroken.

His faith reminded me of an incident that happened almost a decade ago. I did not have a car or a mobile phone back then. I had missed the last of the chartered bus to go back home and I decided to take an auto. Someway down, the auto-wallah started acting funny and I was beginning to get scared. There are two routes to home…one which everybody takes and the other was the mostly deserted outer ring road. On this road, there’s a cut which connects to the other busy road. If however you miss this cut, then it’s a very long way through dark empty stretches till home. When the auto took the Ring road I thought that he would take the cut. He however did not take the cut and kept on driving straight…a route which nobody takes. I was beside myself with fear and shouted at him to stop at a bus-stand. It was 8.30 at night and not a single soul at the bus-stand and the autowallah kept insisting on taking me home. I was planning to jump on to the next bus that came but that too was nowhere in sight. Suddenly out the blue a cycle-rickshaw wallah came and asked what was going on. He was an old man – maybe 50 but looked older – and had only one eye. I told him where I wanted to go and he immediately understood. He firmly told the autowallah to take me back and from the right route. The autowallah did not utter a word and meekly agreed. I sat at the edge of the seat till the time I reached home. It was only when I was safely home that something struck me as strange. In Delhi, cycle-rickshaws are allowed only in some areas and never ever on either the Ring roads. So how did that rickshaw get there in the first place and at such an odd hour? Moreover, the rickshaw-wallah was frail and the autowallah burly…if he had decided to hit him; he would have died on the spot. Yet the auto-wallah never uttered a word.

My relationship with God has been in the least turbulent. As a kid I believed in Him earnestly. I used to ask him for small favours like ‘please let my parents buy me some more Amar Chitra Kathas’ and which got granted. Once I asked him for something and I didn’t get it….that day my childish faith was broken. For a long time after that I remained an atheist. During my college years I had started questioning everything about life and death and slowly my faith returned; though I never asked anything from Him for myself. I knew that I would get when my turn came. Almost a year back however I asked him for something out of turn….I really prayed. He took me high up, made me believe that I had everything I had asked for and then just pushed me down. I almost heard Him laugh when I fell and bled. I was very angry and I hated Him for sometime. But I still have my faith in Him….because I know that there is a reason. I just have to wait for Him to tell me one day…why He did what He did.

He always does.

Death of a notion:

Not too long back in the past, there were a group of people called ‘Explorer’. Now you don’t find any. Only ‘Internet Explorer’. Does that mean that there are no more new things to find, no more unheard places to explore?

Has the earth been finally owned?

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Something broke within me the moment I read about the Juhu New Year incident. I had felt suffocated in Delhi and hence came to this city – for a bit more freedom. This incident seems just the starting point of a spiraling down of the notion. If one does it, everybody else will….its just a matter of time. Evil propagates faster. What scares me here more than anything ever did back in Delhi, is the mob culture which exist just under the surface of the city.

I took an auto home at 1130 last night from Bandra. I kept thinking – what if somebody decides to follow me or just pass comments and everybody else feels like doing the same. Nothing will ever stop them. What is worse is that there will be no scope of escape.

So where will women go when the last bastion of their freedom falls?

High and higher!

Hone hone de nasha, khone khone ko hain kya
Ek saas mein pee ja, zaara zindagi chadha

Hai yeh toh ek jashan, tu thirakne de kadam
Abhi saanson mein hai dam, abhi chalne de sitam


Happy New Year, Folks!

Tales of many cities:

Bangalore: The city was sparkling silver and gold from above when the flight landed at 3 in the morning. It was a hurried visit to the city – a city which reminded me of Delhi, with its bunglows, parks, tree lined roads and even the over-charging auto-wallahs. All my closest friends, childhood friends, friends whom I’ve know for more than 30 years…are now there….so getting a chance to spend my birthday there amongst them was one of the best things that happened this year.

I also So wanted to meet friends there who I haven’t met till date – Manu, GS and Pallavi B. Hopefully sometime very soon.

Delhi: My mom called me up on my birthday to tell me that the fog had cleared up and it was bright and sunny and cold in Delhi…just the way I wanted it to be when I landed there. After all it Was my birthday and Delhi had to welcome me at its winter best. Surprisingly even the Indigo flight was on time.

It’s amazing what a couple of months in a good city can do to you. I found myself being patient and nice to all people around, trusting them a wee-bit more than I used to when I had stayed in the city. The week was a whirlwind of meeting friends and shopping. I went berserk shopping like I’ll never find anything back here in Bombay (which is true…so far I’ve found shopping to be an extremely painful experience here). And zipping through a 40km stretch without stopping (!) even once was so exhilarating that I had almost made my mind to go back there.

Rishikesh: I just had to touch base with the Himalayas. So I almost bulldozed my friend A, S and AB to go to Rishikesh for a day. I was horrified to see so many grotesque high storey building coming up right on the banks of the river. Even the hotel that we stayed at marred the beauty of the surrounding. I felt guilty staying there knowing that I was adding to the destruction. We should have paid more but stayed at an eco-friendly resort. The mindless destruction of nature is so apparent now….it won’t be long before the beauty of the place goes and complete commercialization takes over.

Despite all that, there’s something about Rishikesh that immediately calms your soul. The foothill of the mighty Himalayas and the beautiful Ganga….can bring peace to any troubled mind. Add to that a sparkling moon, a misty morning and some time stolen with some great friends…..the trip was truly refreshing.

Life or Something like that:

God is cheeky. He will make you struggle, test your patience time and again, take you to thousands of crossroads, push you down stiff cliffs, makes you write chapters for which you can find no meaning – but He ultimately gives you what you want.

Sometimes waiting and struggling makes the whole point of getting ‘it’ lose its meaning, sometimes you are dead tired and can manage only a smile at your success where you wanted to be ecstatic. Sometimes you forget what you wanted in the first place.

A friend of mine had once told me – if you know better, act better.

Now if I know that God makes you wait so much, should I just stop wanting so badly? But if you stop dreaming, then you stop living.

Is there any way I can cheat God to give me my life-dues on time? With time slipping away so fast, can I take Him to task at the end and throw a tantrum for not finishing my list? Or will He send me back to struggle over the same list all over again?

Does He do what we do – keep the most precious wish or gift for the end? If that’s so, should we cut down our list so that we get to the best faster? Or should we wish for the end to come faster because your dearest gift will be there?

A journey’s beginning:

I was bone-tired. I had to Get Out. My friend S suggested Kamshet. Lots of people suggested other places. Some said it will be too hot at this time of the year. I said – Let’s just Go!

So after getting up in the wee hours of one Sat morning, four of us hurriedly left the city behind. A flat tire just in the beginning of the journey did not mar anybody’s spirit.
A very bumpy 10km drive inside from Kamshet village led us to M’s cottage overlooking the lake and the dam. 3 happy energetic dogs greeted us at the gate. A rustic cottage, a hammock, cold beer, mellow sun and friends….nobody wanted anything more from life at that point in time.

Another group arrived in due course but we were happy to see that they never ventured out of the ‘campus’. Which meant that the lake was all to our selves and of course M who swam in its cold and quiet waters. We sat by the lake in the morning, evening and night. It was beautiful, serene and absolutely silent…one could hear the wind through the trees and the distant calls of the birds. Each of us took turns to sit or walk by the lake alone – to contemplate or to explore the physical or the beyond. I found peace, A found a snake which looked like a Krait, S found snake-holes and D found flowers and leaves to take pictures of.

What I simply loved was sitting at the lake in the night with a shining moon, a star-laden sky and the lake and hills in the distance all aglow in the pure silver light. It seemed like a different world – so beautiful, secluded and pure. I could have sat there forever.

The short hikes along the road in the fast fading twilight and besides the mist covered lake in the morning simply took away all the tiredness that had seeped in. The air was cold and refreshed and cleaned the cob-webs that had settled deep in the mind. Jim Corbett was my first real trip to the Himalayas. It was the place which stirred my restlessness, made me question myself and opened up a whole new path for me – as clear as the mountain air. Kamshet somehow reminded me of Jim Corbett…the same sense of calm, beauty and a seed of a dream. I wonder now at the path that I see slowly opening – will it be just as refreshing as before?

Good Old City:

I finished work late today and was standing outside my office waiting for a cab to come by. The road was comparatively deserted. One cabbie pulled up but then refused to go where I wanted to go. After saying no, he immediately got out and waved to one other cab for me. Some two more taxis stopped. He made sure that I took the one which was standing there for a long time waiting for a passenger.

I was amazed at this guy’s thoughtfulness. First for me and then for the other cabbie.

I promise I’ll stop shouting at all the auto and taxi-wallahs like the way I do – in my typical Delhi way.

And for the first time in four months I behaved like a Bombay-wallah – I loosened up and asked my taxi guy to switch on the radio. He switched it on.

“Tum bhi chalo, hum bhi chalen…chalti rahe zindagi….”

Yes, so right!

Just:

One junior person in my team listens to ‘re-sung’ versions of old Hindi songs. Kumar Shanu-singing-Kishore Kumar-types. She thinks its original and keeps asking me how I could make out that it’s a ‘fake’!!

The juniors look at me strangely when I tell them that I like old Hindi and English numbers.

Another junior person wants to get rich fast. He keeps repeating ‘I have to earn money fast.’ He’s just 6 months in the industry and earning 3 times more that what I used to get when I was a trainee.

I met a woman a few weeks back; she was wearing a saree that day. The first thing that she said after saying hello was ‘please excuse me for being dressed like a moron but I had a workshop.’

I sometimes wonder what all I’ll get to hear in the next 10 years.
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I burnt my fingers very badly the other day. The pain was excruciating but it didn’t faze me one bit. Because I knew that this pain will at least end.
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Review meeting in Goa – it’s an oxymoron. Goa is a place for friends or families or lovers or for just being alone. I don’t understand the funda of taking people from all branches to Goa just to tell them how poorly everybody’s performed. Thankfully I could manage to slip away for sometime during dinner and spend that time walking the beach.

However these walks turned out to be just as claustrophobic – at one end were the office people discussing farcical issues while at the other end were the numerous amorous couples strolling in the dark. I found myself stuck between the falsities of both the world dying to run away yet again.

The trance-like crashing waves and the soft sand held me there.
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The cheek-by-jowl buildings here block out the sky completely. I don’t think I have seen the moon or even a star in this city’s night sky yet. I miss watching the sparkling moon and the feathery clouds from my balcony in the other city. Sometimes – especially during approaching winter – late in the night when the moon’s high up in the sky and a faint cold wind blew, I could sniff the air and smell the snow-peaks and pine leaves – my dur khaima. My home. My peace.

Colour of Paradise:

I don’t like talking about movies here…because it’s a very personal preference and I don’t like raving or ranting about any. Let each people decide.

But a week ago, I saw an Iranian movie ‘Colour of Paradise’….a story about a blind boy. It’s not the story that I want to talk about. It’s the way the director has understood and captured the beauty of nature. Fresh, real and so beautiful that your heart aches with sheer longing. The wind through the trees, the sound of a bird, the colour of the field full of flowers, the gentle sway of the leaves and the crops, the boy’s hand touching the maize stalk, the silvery moon……so many times, unknowingly tears rolled down my eyes just at those simplest sights. Throughout the duration of the movie, I was spellbound. Nobody can bring nature out like this if he or she is not moved by the beauty around.

Go watch it with your heart.

The Odyssey years:

Most festivals have lost its charm on me. I rather stay at home than participate. Thankfully my parents have let me be…never forcing anything down my throat in the name of tradition or religion. Till the time I was with my parents, going for the Asthami Pushpanjali seemed more like a duty than any other sentiment. However, this Puja I not only wore a new dress but made efforts to go out and give the morning Anjali. Maybe breaking that link with familiarity makes one crave it all the more. The sentiments haven’t changed….I still did it more like a duty but this time I remembered all that my mother used to say and do around this time every year. I remembered all the familiar faces in the crowd, the smell, the euphoria and tried seeking the same sense of space and time here in this still unknown part of life.

It’s true, however much you try otherwise, your roots always hold you firm and gives you your distinct identity.

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I was reading in the papers today about the ‘Odyssey years’ - that journey from teenage to adulthood…how people in their 20s are postponing settling down in order to find themselves. Good to know that now they have a term for the travails that I have gone through in the last decade. I now seem to have reached a stage in life which they termed as adulthood – a period of settling down.

But for me the quest seems far from over…..it seems to magnify with each passing years.
There seems to be a certain truth about our parents’ conviction on how to spend your life. Simple living and doing one’s duty. ‘Finding oneself’ can take you around life’s many unwanted corners, not giving any answers and throwing you right in the middle of the maze every time you seem to find a path.

Maybe by that time it will be too late to go back to our parent’s way of living. Maybe in another decade’s time, while I will have reached another milestone in my search, they will give it yet another term and relegate it as yet another phenomenon.

Snippets:

Surprisingly I haven’t seen any cows on the streets here. Weaving through herds, being attacked by bulls, road-blocks by an entire family, lost calves…. were the ways of life in Delhi. A bovine-free road seems like a foreign concept to me. Come to think of it, with so many open fields, trees, parks and weekly vegetable markets, they have a field day there….out here they would probably be run over by the traffic or people.
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The crows outside our building starts to crow precisely at 1230 at night….without fail everyday.
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Delhi’s autowallahs always made me mad but like everybody else, I had also submitted to their dishonest ways. But my blood boils and I froth at the mouth when I find dishonest auto or taxi wallahs here who are out to rip your pocket. Perhaps finding an honest city turning dishonest is far worse than knowing that a city is absolutely dishonest to begin with. It hurts to see the city changing so.
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I got a chance to travel the famous Bombay-Pune Expressway in day-time. I kept waiting for the scene to turn beautiful but it seemed to turn exactly its opposite. Hoarding all along the way, grotesque looking buildings stretching way into the hills – all in the name of luxury living in the lap of nature. In a few years time, there will be no nature, only man made disasters. I shudder at the very thought.
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First it was the cellphone with ear-plugs. Now it’s the I-pod. Everybody out here seems to be plugged. In the train, while crossing a street, in the car, while working. I am one of those few people who hate to change especially when it comes to technology. But now I have realized its importance – long and arduous traveling. I miss the long drives around Delhi in my car with windows closed, listening to music and getting lost in my own world.

In Delhi, people are in groups mostly. Out here, it’s the rule of the single. With an I-pod plugged in the ears….lost in their own world, part of a crowd yet completely apart, hurrying to work, home or a party…or hurrying through life….trying to find those few moments of peace…through music.

Maybe that’s what defines the Bombay of today.

Stepping Out:

I had to get out of the city, the chaos of everyday life. So despite little sleep the previous night, I headed out to the shayadri with a bunch of people early in the morning. We turned away from the highway and stopped in front of a charming little village. J showed us the formidable looking hill in the distance that we had to climb. Looking around I saw many strangely formed hills shrouded in the morning mist. Anybody would think hundred times before venturing into these jungles and the hills – and looking at them, I finally realised the genius of Shivaji who knew every nook and cranny of these ghats and how he got to rule such a vast territory.

The trek to the top was a moderate one – one hour of climb, then one hour of flat walk through a couple of tribal villages and then again another hour of fairly steep ascent to the top. The trail was through slushy grassland, a few slippery patches of rock, elephant grasses, buzzing insects, snails and caterpillars. I wished for clouds and a little rain but the sun breathed down on us.

At the top we passed through an ancient gateway with a Ganesha on top and a huge water tank where a buffalo lay sprawled right in the centre. Just how did it manage to get there is one of the biggest mysteries I have come across. The view from the top was worth all the effort – the de-formed hills through the haze, patches of absolutely green meadows, a star shaped lake and tiny villages below. I stood gazing at the valley below for a long time, feeling nothing. These were not the snow-peaks which anchor my thoughts or the sea which magnifies them so. I felt strangely cheated despite the beauty around me.

Maybe I will realise this place’s significance once I am able to understand my place here. Till that time, there’s the Sea.

Contradictions:

The city is a remarkable sight from high up in a plane. Tall buildings sprouting in various directions….and the rest of the area filled with slums. Not an inch spared….it seemed that more people lived in the slums than in proper buildings. In a city so expensive, just how do they manage to survive?

Travelling within the city, I was amazed to find that most buildings were as ancient as life itself….blackened walls, peeling paint, tiled roof, wooden stairs, age-old lifts…..the resemblance to Calcutta old city is just amazing (except for the caged windows here). What I absolutely love is the big sprawling Parsi bunglows on the way to Fort and tiny pretty houses in and around Bandra. For just how long these links to a comfortable past will survive, is a question I do not want to answer.

I also found that there are these perfect little villages right within the city with lush greenery and fields around. Some so isolated that people refuse to travel after nightfall from that area.

I hate the ugliness of the city during the day-time but I love the dream-like sparkling city of the night.

In a city where everybody is rushing, in a tearing hurry….where there is only one chance that you get……its strange how the dream-like ‘another chance’ by roger sanchez, late one night with friends and zipping through another glittering road seemed to hold the very essence of my life here.

Homecoming?

I was standing on my balcony late in the night looking down at the vacant plot where my dearest car had stood for the past few years. I felt that slight nip in the cool breeze. It might have just been my imagination but I wanted badly to feel that welcome nip in the air. The afternoons already had mellowed feel to it, with a definite promise of the coming winter.

I love this season….autumn in Delhi. For me it defines my faith in life. Bright yet melancholic, happiness without a reason, anticipation of greater times, heart-soaring music, happy flowers, sparkling snow-peaks, ever lasting friendships, long coffee meetings, deep forever love.

I went around town looking for all these things or rather its impressions in the city’s many nooks and crannies. A sparkling laughter in a bylane, an eternal wait on the steps of a shop, lies to home from a phone booth, a secret lunch break from office, the hurried walk from the parking lot to get to the party, the long dreamy drives back home, ice-creams on a rainy day, crying under a neem tree. I never realises that so many memories lay all over the city for me to pick up again and remember.

I felt the city tug at my heart. I had tears…..yes, I was yet another of them who used the city and never called it my own.

And yes, I am going to miss badly the Autumn in the city.

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Lately any kind of closed space makes me claustrophobic. That is, apart from my office and home. Pubs, coffee houses, other friend’s home….I feel as if the walls are closing in on me and then my heart starts to beat faster urging me to run. Good old music infact adds onto it. It reminds me of a past….the good and the bad, the expectations, the story in those eyes, the micro world that I had created for myself and lived in for so many years. I want to run away…I have been running away for so long….way away into the mountains to pitch all my unanswered questions again and again. Maybe that’s why I am here….the sea stops me….no more running away….the vast world is just out there. All mine and yet different. I can blow away all my questions….out in the sea….to be answered at its own unhurried pace.

Mumbai Chronicles II

Mumbai’s street food has me drooling. I am dying to try out all the stuff at various places in the city. The only thing restricting me is my slowly recovering system which is used to the air and water of Delhi and not the spicy food of this place. Even then I can say that the food concept of this city never fails to amaze me.

The sweet, spicy and heavy Dabeli from (as per my friend C) the G-spot of Mumbai - Ghatkopar. When I asked him for a napkin, he gave me a piece of newspaper.

The cheese sandwiches at the Worli seaface….its so much better than the big sandwiches at the well known cafes.

The slab of sitafal ice-cream put in between two wafers from the Parsi ice-cream parlour near Churchgate. I kept wondering how the Delhi folks would react to such take-aways.

My friend barked at me when I asked for wooden spoons from the bhel-wala – “don’t you know how to eat bhel!!” When I looked baffled, he picked up the papri and used it as a spoon.

Delhi uses paper plates, steel plates, wooden or steel spoons…letting people stand and eat at a leisurely pace. Mumbai’s street food is built around its hectic pace….thrives on innovative take-aways. I never saw any people standing and enjoying the food around the stalls. No time.

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Delhi spoils its people. Especially people like me. One can travel 35km in an auto for as little as 120 Rupees. One can park one’s car in a complex for the whole day for as less as Rs. 10. It has designated areas and markets for different kind of shopping. You just have to define your need, go to a locality and get everything under the sun. The local market in your area has everything you want at the cheapest price possible.

In this city, travel is like a jigsaw puzzle. You can never reach point a to b in a single mode of transportation without paying through your nose (on taxis). Trains, then auto. Auto, then taxi. Taxi to the bus stop, then bus and then another taxi. And shops are scattered anywhere and everywhere. I am still grappling with this complex method of living.

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I wanted to see the sun set and the necklace light up at the Marine Drive. By the time I reached, the sky had become purple grey and the lights of the city were shining strong and bright. I kind of like the city during the night. It seems to come alive with energy after the sun sets…like me. Or maybe because it hides the squalor and harshness of life so well, which is all too obvious during the day time....like certain truths of my life. The glittering light lets you forget….calms your soul and allows you to dream just a bit.

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I looked out the window of my building late one night. On one side, the slum dwellers were having a blast practicing the human pyramid – for the Ganpati festival. On the other side, a sky-scraper stood in darkness with all lights switched off. As I stood staring, the lights on a 15th floor balcony came on. It glowed in the dark and looked so warm, loved and lived in. I closed my eyes and saw a view of a full moon on the sea from high above and felt a strong breeze around me. When I opened my eyes, the building was in total darkness again.

Yes. Someday. Yet another dream.

Mumbai Chronicles – I:

Its newness had long faded off…perhaps it was only in my mind. My reaction to the city now is more like slowly getting acquainted to a person after the freshness of the first meeting wears off. The subtleties, the pros, getting around the cons, slowly trying to pry its very soul and understanding its reaction to me.

I had perhaps come with an image of a city which had charmed me so much some ten years ago. Little did I realise that like a person even a city changes as events happen over the years. This city seems like a mere shadow of that long gone image….minus its lustre. There’s a nervous energy and not the happy chaos of yesteryears. The streets lack that shine which had once caught my imagination and I have seen better roads in Bihar than what exists now. The city seems to be fraying at the edges…slowly and surely…its strong fabric becoming loose. Remove the people – its soul and it will collapse, dead.

N took me to the Land’s End where we sat down at the sea’s edge looking at the vast grey expanse in front of us and the hazy city-line behind our backs….as pale as a winter evening. As the day faded, the city slowly came into life….like oxygen flowing through its vein. The glittering tall buildings shone through and lights lined up the city’s coast….a scene which I have always loved. Perhaps the dreams are not lost yet. Perhaps I can still find myself in this city’s warm undying soul.

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The well known places of Delhi leapt out from the scenes of the movie (Chak de!) It made me smile, warmed my heart and I felt a strange sense of pride – of once being a part of that city. My relationship with the city has always been unstable – like that with a person who you cannot like and hence always resist but when the ties are cut off, you realise his/her importance.

If I go back ever, it will again get that volatile. Its better this way – to retain that sense of warmth and closeness, but from afar.

The morning:

Read in a newspaper today.

MF Hussain when asked what he felt about his exile, said:

"Jab raat ho aisi matwali ,
toh subah ka aalam kya hoga!"

Now that is what i call being romantic.

Yes, it all makes sense now.

Alchemist:

My friend C indulged me. I wanted to walk down the Worli Sea face in the evening. We walked and we talked. The sea was grey and angry. The sky even darker. The wind sprayed the salt water across the road. I enjoyed having aloo-sandwich and coffee and watching the city’s skyline through the grey mist. We made a pact to come here often for walks.

I used to love the sea once upon a time. I used to dream of a tiny cottage by the sea from where I could watch the endless waves crashing on the shore. I could sit for hours staring out trying to answer life’s questions. Now the sea deepens my agitation and the salt in the air clings oppressively. I found myself thinking about the sparklingly clean air of the mountains.

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It was a chance meeting and then hours of non-stop discussion. In the end he told me I was like the character in the Alchemist…I am following my dreams. The treasure is there at the end of the journey…at home, he was sure. I wondered whether he knew something about me that I didn’t.

And I wondered what kind of a story it would be, when the protagonist follows a dream that’s become a mere shadow and he doesn’t know where home is. Will the treasure at the end of the journey still have any value?