The final countdown has begun.....am moving out of amchi mumbai / amchi India in the next few days......& as we speak, i share a mixed feeling of anxiety, excitement and pain...
Anxiety for the start of a new phase, new country, new region, new culture....and all that... Excitement for getting opportunity to travel to new country and perhaps more places as i plan to globe-trot, and pain for having to leave a beautiful city like Mumbai......( i love the place and am a fanatic when it comes to defending the city....) ( i can pick a fight if anyone talk ill about mumbai and the locals...)
I will take you through the story of the " TOAD IN THE WELL " . The toad stays in the well, builds the comfort zone , loves the neighbours, enjoys the moss, the algae, the water, likes to swim....and hops from one end of the well to the other. and when it rains, the toad...likes to enjoy the muddy waters and breathes the pollution. One fine day, the toad accidentally crawls out of the well, it ( or better still he ) sees the land, the landscape, surroundings......he hates it...
he misses the water and the moss...he misses the smell of the home. He cringes , cribs....He wants to get back to the well....but he does not really go back ; thats becoz his life has taken a new turn...and he needs to go with the flow.....He will remember the welll but may be wont get to it in the times to come....
Ha....well dont ask me what happened to the toad later.....But i kind of wanna talk of the moral of the story....
Move on or you will get stuck with status quo and love every bit of it ...; I read a famous quotation that says.....
What is the world full of ... it is full of things that arise,persist and cease....
Grasp and Cling to them and they produce suffering ...and don't Grasp and Cling to them and they don't produce suffering...
Ha....well if i share all that i went through...as soon as i heard that i am getting to move to a new place...i tried to cling on to the fact...that let me make most of mumbai...the thought was unnerving...i will have to watch all Hindi movies that are released in the theatre ; would have to go to all restaurants that i plan to visit....imagine leaving Mumbai without my last movie at Sterling or without my portion of bhelpuri ( evening snacks )
my need to be with folks,to meet relatives, buy clothes etc.....get into the happy act of reminiscing.....well how would i cope with all the change....am so used to the comfort of my office, my job, of the thrill of knowing people, and of living a life effortlessly........well i never had to explore mumbai.....
What I felt few days earlier was a classic contradiction....an anomaly...right infront of me !!!
Lets rewind to six months back, and remember the pangs of existential crisis . I had started hating Mumbai for the fast pace of life, the travel, the familiarity with every road, the know it all...syndrome...I knew the bylane of each road....i knew the happening places, i had partied everywhere, i had shopped at every new mall that the city churned out...etc etc...i had been to every loo of the Mumbai airport travelled to many parts of India... almost lost my count of the mumbai del trips or the mumbai cal , mumbai bangalore...i had travelled the BEST, shatabdis and the rickshaws...welll......been there done that....and wanted a change...or was hoping for some change....& Disruption to the Normal Life.
well when the disruption came or the news of it came , I have suddenly become fond of everything that has to do with the city I suddenly want to make most of my Bombay life....well not that i am leaving everything to go to the back of beyonds....to a tribal place with no urban life...i will move to Hong Kong....a city with life...
and the typical buzz similar to the one that you get in Mumbai.
with all thats going...with clock ticking and time passing by I continue to take every day as it comes....go on a long walk by the Arabian sea ( bandstand ) promenade, use my digi cam to capture images.....eat pav bhaji and sev puri...(lots)
I shall promise that I will watch all Hindi mOvies, listen to all Hindi songs and have maximum fun...and to all the bombay wallahs ......
MY ODE TO MUMBAI....
The beauty of Mumbai lies in the eyes of the beholder.....or...rather the beer holder
