Bombay Rant. Again!

Just when you think that the guy up there has come to terms with your blissfully unproductive existence, he plops what is known as the East Central Bombay phenomenon onto your plate.  This is somewhat akin to a typical Salman Khan movie anticlimax, where the violated viewer discovers that the real cause of the leading lady’s anguish is not her evil uncle’s plan to usurp her property, but rather her allergy to home made Palak Paneer.

Sad analogies aside, a happy day for most people here consists of successfully managing to climb into and out of crowded local trains at the right stops. I have often thought of Bombay as a city interrupted in the middle of a revolution. As if the people in it were fighting for a much greater cause before the pause, and are now forced to give vent to agitations through trivial daily chores simply because they cannot recall what their original cause was.

But most of all,  Bombay, always absurd and often charming, is to me a concoction of copious amounts of coffee, television, noisy neighbours and sweat. Where storylines in hindi soaps miraculously seem to make more sense than real life. And where the highest point of the day is that one hour of water supply, with a frenzy to find as many empty utensils as possible that can hold water enough to last for two whole days. A place where everybody owes everybody else money, and fake affidavits are more omnipresent than ten rupee notes.

For better or for worse, a Bombay sojourn has never failed to increase my blog count till date. It is a city that liberates you as much as it entraps, where you know you must keep moving on inspite of everything you do  seeming too little, too late. It is hard to not fall in love with Bombay.

Advertisement