Mumbai - The city of Dreams

Like Delhi, Mumbai is another place that I have visited on and off for various activities. But unlike Delhi, I have had some cherished moments and some disastrous ones at this bindaas place. Moments which have quite often made me speculate whether I would want to live here for sometime and get into the rat race; the so called struggle for survival.

The weirdest thing which I have always felt at Mumbai is that one could sense, that the city itself breathes. There is so much life and certainly so much exuberance that one couldn’t help but think that this place has to have something. For almost an year I had been thinking about this whole idea of moving to Mumbai; getting out into the open far far away from my comfortable and cozy three bedroom flat in Delhi. The idea of starting off all over again at a new place has almost always excited me; but at the same time there's also a risk of this drastic step being completely disastrous. So many thoughts popping into my head all at the same time; completely new set of people, new localities, lots of risks, et cetera et cetera….Hell, we get just one shot at taking a plunge and when we don’t we keep wondering our whole god-damn life as to why we didn’t do it when we had the chance. So here I am with all my bags packed and a months leave on me, to find a job in the city of dreams. Hoping, that I might get to relive my dreams; the ones that I have certainly foreseen.

I did manage to get a job in the first few days itself; and a great one indeed. Also, not to forget the various activities that I had indulged into, like roamed the plush streets of town; sat at the tumultuous Café Mondegar, with various cartoons on the wall narrating a tale of their own; listened to some great music at Toto’s Garage, with pals; walked down the beautiful promenade at Bandstand; traveled in the bustling local train, with profusely sweating people and yet I believe that there is more to come. I have been in Mumbai for over a month now and to be honest I feel that I haven’t seen a fraction of what the place is actually about. Right now, I couldn’t help but remember a paragraph from this poem I had once read –

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep”

So here I am moving on and at the same time waiting for more to come at this unprecedented place called Mumbai – The City of Dreams.

How tedious is a guilty conscience!

All of us have a certain Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde inside us. We live with these two sides, which are like two faces of a coin; one thriving on the existence of another. Come to think of it perhaps our bad deeds, in a way, make us a good man. There are times when we take sinful pleasure in our devilish act, which for that particular moment gives us an endless feeling of joy; leading to a strong sense of guilt that brews inside. It is this feeling of guilt that makes us think the other way round for a split-second; and that's when we realise that we should perhaps be repenting by doing some good.

Some of us start our life in a very sane way, weighing every action of ours and thinking about the rights and wrongs. We feel proud doing so and somewhere deep down inside believe that all this good that I am doing will open doors for more good things to come into my life. We wake up from our slumber one beautiful morning to find ourselves stranded in the middle of nowhere, with a feeling of remorse inside. The question that confronts us at that particular time is why, why me? Of all the people in the world, why me? I was so god damn right, I was so goddamn true to myself and everything was happening the way it should have been happening. What about all the faith one had…. Faith in me, faith in us and most of all faith in god. One strong current and all is lost. It’s then that we realise how fast we had been running; and how in the heat of it we had completely forgotten to look back and see where the rest of the world was. We look around to see that all is lost somewhere way behind; feels like holding a handful of sand. One moment my hands were full the second there's nothing. Now comes a phase when we form a shell around us and promise to not move out of it and come what may we will not let anybody get close to us. We protect ourselves more than anything; like a wounded rabbit hiding inside its burrow, afraid of coming out. We say that enough of giving let’s start taking for a change. Let us take what we can and move on in life; trying to justify all our wrong-doings by our skepticism; convincing oneself that not long ago something like that has happened to me, so why not do the same and see what it feels like. The devil inside working at its best, making us believe that all our actions are consequential; completely based on what has happened to us in the past. We think so perhaps because somewhere inside we desperately want to avenge all that has happened to us. Marching ahead; breaking rules, breaking hearts and breaking people. People who really care; who perhaps want nothing but our happiness. We keep over-looking, turning corners and at the same time moving forward. Then something comes back to us from the past, which makes us think for a while and stop our so-called progress towards ones own destruction. We again turn around to gage what’s happenings in our life and we see that its deja vu....God, aren't we there at the same point thinking about the same why, but with a different perspective this time. Now this time round its why did I do something as stupid; and the best part is that life as usual doesn't give you a second chance at turning things around. It is a strong sense of guilt that develops inside of us then.

This feeling of guilt becomes our skin over our naked body, which we can’t take off; like an inherent part of the whole system. We keep living; thinking that there would be a day when we would get to repent for what we have done and would perhaps get to apologise for one's wrongdoings, but life as usual never gives a second chance.

At times I meet people who tell me to forget about the past and look towards the future to come. I wonder then why is it that I am not able to forget something which had happened way back in time? I remember reading somewhere that the life of a Libran comprises of balancing his good deeds over his bad ones. Is that why I try to strike a perfect balance between the good and the bad or is it just another myth that I believe in. The answer to yet another simple but important question evades me, as usual.