Mumbai..

I had a problem accepting the fact that 'I' missed Mumbai!

Here, is my defence.

I have been born and brought up in Delhi, have loved the city for as long as remember. My entire family- first and extended is here. For 20 years of my life I hadn't thought of a new abode. And then Ahmedabad happened. The serene city let me be. It let me be who I was. It helped me go deeper into the shell that I move around with. It helped me become more reclusive. It helped me stay comfortable in the space that I had created for myself. It let me nurture my dreams. It just let me be.

Ahmedabad to Mumbai was a swift transition. Even more swift was how my life changed. From a city that helped me retrospect and think and take my time, I found myself in a place where people had to borrow time to even breathe.

Mumbai pushed me; it stretched me beyond my limits. It made me do things I had never done before. It roughly dragged me out of my shell and put me in the same line as thousands of other cut throat competitors. There was no end to how much I got pushed and jolted... and then came a day when i gave up. I couldn't run that rat race anymore. I couldn't be just another one in that crowd anymore.

I packed my bags and came back to the safer havens... Delhi. I knew everyone here. I knew my way.  I didn't feel like the nomadic crowd. This city never pushed me to the edge. I returned back to the shell that I thought I had misplaced in the crowded locals of the millennium city.

Isn't it strange that I now miss Mumbai? 

Indeed. I felt the same. One day I woke up missing Mumbai. No. not the people. not the weather. Not the roads. The entire city. The essence of the city, the feel. I missed the thought that is christened Mumbai.

I miss the freedom it gave me. In the way I dressed, in the way I spoke, in whom I met, in where I went, and most of all the freedom to be without being.

The city gave me the space to be an individual. Yet it didn't let me retrospect. It always kept me on my toes. It never let me be in my shell. It kept nudging me out of it. It kept pushing my boundaries a little further away every day. It helped me move out of that restrictive space around me and helped me grow. Mature. Learn. 

It helped me know new people without having to carry the baggage of judging them. It helped me experiment with my ways in life without feeling too guilty about the society. It helped me do things I always only dreamt of, it let me dream more every other day.

If Ahmedabad gave me feet, Mumbai gave them pace.

I, Me, Myself.

I am not a very selfless person. Like almost every one of us, I am pretty selfish.

But then, there are always incidents and moments that hit home the fact that I am not all about me. There are other aspects to this individual's life too.

I am ageing. So are my parents.

I have dreams. So do my parents

I have hang-ups. So do my parents.

I have heart breaks. So do they.

In these similarities, there is an ocean of differences.

I am ageing, gracefully, taking my time, enjoying my newly found adulthood. My parents are ageing, fast, beyond youth to old age. My grace is complimented ferociously by their fade. I am enjoying the clock ticking away as I grow, I dread as the clock tick for them, as they grow old.

I have just about started to dream with open eyes and a clear mind. They have lived past the age for new dreams, knowing that they have counted time to fulfil their own. They now live dreams that they see through my eyes. Always trying to find fragments of theirs in mine. If they don’t succeed at first, they alter theirs to make them look a lot like mine.

I live in an age where i have a mind that can be moulded beyond my perceptions and acceptance. They live in the age bracket where they can’t change much. They have grown to be a certain way. They have learnt to accept certain norms in life.

I have overcome the heartaches of teenage to more realistic career, life and ideology based heartbreaks. They have moved beyond heartaches of any kind to my heartaches.

Today, there was a simple discussion about plans for my 25^th birthday. I was resentful but they had plans for a wish I rarely say.

In moments like these I feel small. I feel helpless. I feel I haven’t done anything yet. Not for my selfish self, but for people whose world, dreams and time, selflessly, revolves around me.