Dreaming of other things

This June, I completed four years in Mumbai. Bombay.

I was astounded - it couldn't be, I told myself. It couldn't be that I had been away from home, from Pune, for four years and I could still be this...restful. I no longer haunt the tree-lined bylanes of Fergusson College road, no longer sit on the steps of the cake shop drinking pathetic coffee spewed by an angry machine, and I no longer beat the dhol when the skies darken and the cries of Ganapati Bappa Morya echo through the streets. I don't write as much anymore, and I don't read as much I used to. I don't dream that wildly nor do I make tall statements that have no basis in reality other than  my fervent desire to make them come true.

I am not that person anymore. 

I am a Bombay person now. I carry an umbrella everywhere, I have m indicator on my phone, and I time my life not by hours, but by minutes.

I stay in a rented flat with walls that are white and clean, and the only hint of my personality is a large dreamcatcher that catches dust more than it does my dreams. I do not know my neighbours - they don't know me, they don't care to know me. I don't blame them. It is difficult to see a never ending stream of working professionals walk in through the door - girls tall, short, smart, bespectacled, loud, shy - all on their way somewhere - anywhere but here. That's when I know I am in Bombay Navi Mumbai.

Dual Existence.

That's what I see it as. Split between today - this moment, and the memory or this moment, and the longing.

I'm in office, working on an excel sheet that perhaps nobody is ever going to see, and I'm in Seogwipo, on Seongsan Ilchulbang seeing the waves break their hearts over the dark, rocky shore.

I am painstakingly cutting an onion, and I'm on Sinhagad, eating dahi from an earthen pot.

I am cleaning out my wardrobe, and I am playing with Prakhar.

I am walking to the canteen, and I am walking down to the dining hall to eat the same old matki usal.

I am sitting by the window, looking at the night sky through the haze of Bombay, and I am sitting by the window, looking at the night sky through the haze of Bombay.