Mumbai Chronicles: Contd.

It’s almost nine months now….and I’m finally warming up to Bombay and living on my own. Random people still ask me the same question….which is better, Delhi or Bombay….and I still give them a clichéd answer about traffic and infrastructure and people and all that blah.

Over the months, my reactions to this city have mellowed. I have stopped comparing everything to what it’s like in Delhi. The apartment which seemed tiny when I shifted here now seems luxurious in comparison to flats in the suburbs. I still crib about traffic but now I have found many lanes and by-lanes leading away from the traffic. I know where to go in order to avoid rigged autos or taxis. I know the taxi chart by heart. I can even give directions to a Bombay-wallah. I know shops which sell original perfume at half the price, salons which gives fantastic head massages, cute lingerie stores, melt-in-the-mouth home made ice-cream parlours, markets for buying good yet cheap curtains and bedcovers, yummy muslim food joints. Despite what other people say, I still like Haji ali’s strawberry and cream than the Bachelors’. I know how much time it takes to reach Town at 5 and at 7 in the evening. I have learnt to take a taxi or auto ride home at 1 in the night without sitting on the edge of the seat all the way. I like watching canoodling couples in the back seat of the taxis. I have realized that Bombay gives you lot of personal space while Delhi gives you only physical space. I like the vastness of the sea and the fact that I can sit alone for hours without being bothered. I have found that this city is full of evasive melodious koyals. But mostly I like the attitude of the guys here….who unlike Delhites will not think that you are looking for sex if you touch them when you speak.

But what I yearn for the most is the closeness to the Himalayas. I have stepped out of the city a few times but nowhere have I got the high of the clean fresh air of the mountains. I love the fact that I know the mountains like my own backyard and that most Bombay-wallahs don’t. Somehow I feel that they are immensely unlucky that they have never known the mountains. How else can I explain what it feels like to take a bus in the night and wake up to a crystal clear sky and pine scented air; what it feels like when the cold mountain wind tousles your hair and your skin begs to feel the warm glow of the sun? To look at the millions of stars in the cold night sky and feel the warmth of the silence around you. To go on those long walk with friends without feeling the need to speak or those crazy laughter sessions over a nightcap, that echoes throughout the little town. How can I explain that standing there facing the snow-peaks, you feel alive like you have never felt in the city; that it’s the only place where you can be you.

Delhi will always remain one-up for me in this regard. Bombay still has a long way to go. One day when it makes me pine for the freedom of the sea….then I’ll completely belong.