Rearview Cityscape

Once the buzzing in your head stops and you gather your thoughts and belongings to make sense of your surroundings and situation, the pieces slowly fall into places and everything comes rushing back to you. The slow walk outside into reality feels like start of something new but also manages to leave a bittersweet taste of leaving something behind. The air was chillier than I am used to but there ensued a warm feeling inside me as I gazed upon the blue skies and smiled in anticipation of what awaits for me out there. The smell of a new city always embraces you warmly, even in a chilly fall afternoon. The long walk from Terminal to Baggage claim and eventually to exits where cabs await eagerly seemed endless.

I did not plan on leaving my beloved city in the way that I did. The city even though with all it’s shortcomings, never disappoints you. Great writers and even common everyday folks have romanticized the struggles an individual has to go through in their everyday life to make it in this city. For someone who was born and brought up in the famous undying spirit of the city, Mumbai always has and will have a special place in my heart. When the day came to finally bid adieu to the city I love, to start a new adventure in a new city, I wanted to take my own sweet time. But if anything Mumbai has taught me is that always be prepared for the unplanned, coz life as I have seen it, always intends to surprise. There’s a little secret rule of thumb we all Mumbaikars live by -

“Always keep moving, never stop unless it’s raining.”

Rains in Mumbai are nothing like anywhere else, the experience evokes such a raw emotion in everyone that you can’t help but romanticize even the most tragic and inconvenient circumstances. I was packed and ready to leave just as monsoons were ready to depart Mumbai, I saw it as the most appropriate company with whom I can leave the city. The sudden rush of reality which hits you when it’s time to go through the logistics and the practical aspects of the tasks at hand, there is little room for the nostalgia. One thing though I have learnt over the years, travelling in Mumbai local trains, the sudden push and jolt of the moving time and crowd always keeps you moving, eventually taking you exactly where you need to be. The fear of unknown combined with the excitement of everything that awaits is exactly the emotion Mumbai rains give you. If you ever find yourself in such situation in Mumbai, give into it.

“You can take the boy out of Bombay; you can’t take Bombay out of the boy, you know.” — Salman Rushdie

The cab started on it’s course as I handed the driver address to my hotel. The cab rides are never particularly exciting no matter whichever city you go in, but every once in a while, you get that chatty cab driver, who makes sure you remember him as a lingering thought in days to come. Anthony, a middle aged, soul food loving, seemingly happy, smiling local cab driver with a peculiar accent broke the silence with a familiar question. A typical “what’s your name and where you are from?” is not a fun conversation starter and never gives you a hint whether other person is genuinely asking or just being polite. The reaction to the answer though, is something you can grasp upon to see if there is a conversation that can be started or the cab ride is going to have more platonic exchanges. The traffic slowed us down and that gave us a small moment to exchange glances in the rear view mirror. The cab driver turned around and with a faint smile looked at me and complimented the city and the people. Something he says he never forgot —

“That city fed a teenage hungry me when I worked and studied there back in 70s. It’s got a vibe man!”

“The vibe”, where have I heard that before while people describe Mumbai. The word typically does a good job to describe any city. It is albeit an lazy attempt to describe an emotion and Mumbai certainly is full of that, emotion. To be fair, many have attempted to describe the city and have done a glorious job of it. Gregory David Roberts best described Mumbai in his debut autobiographical novel “Shantaram” —

“Mumbai is the sweet, sweaty smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it’s the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It’s the smell of Gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. Its the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the island city, and the blood metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and the waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and love that produces courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches and mosques, and of hunderd bazaar devoted exclusively to perfume, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. That smell, above all things — is that what welcomes me and tells me that I have come home.” — Gregory David Roberts

I have lived in Mumbai most of my life and I have been away for significant time in my short experienced life but if there is something that you can be sure is, once you have lived in Mumbai, no other city feels home. The island filled with more people than it’s capacity allows it and the humid air that always reminds you to take it easy once in a while as the traffic buzzes around you. Over the years I have gotten used to the constant buzz of people and vehicles, breathing in the humid air and the rush to be somewhere else than where I was. I , like many other who have lived in Mumbai, love to have a post midnight drive to have tea and cigarettes by the side of sea, looking into abyss, a smoke filled sky highlighted by the street lights. The indulgence of street food with friends reminscing of days gone by , never to return. The nights lost in that haze of smog staring at the seemingly endless sea, are hard to leave behind. The constant rush that the city gives, is like a drug that keeps you going through the rough times and some light hearted ones.

The sudden jolt of the cab stopping and Anthony’s voice dragged me out of the slumber of thoughts suggesting that the destination has arrived. Anthony gave his card and asked to call if I needed anything which earned him a decent tip. I eagerly settled into my hotel room and decided to venture out for a bite. The receptionists in the hotel lobby was nice enough to warn me about the weather and the windyness. The chilly air greeted me like a stranger’s poke intending to inquire about me. The wind was quite harsh as I was warned and struggled my way into a local bistro and ordered myself a plate of whatever was quickly available on the menu. As I took the first bite of food in my new city, filled with excitement to explore and breath in the good with the bad, I told myself —

“Let the Detox begin”