Bombay Dreams - Au Revoir

Maybe you haven’t noticed, maybe you did but don’t care or maybe you are also in the same lethargy that I am in… whatever, its adieu to this wonderful city Bombay. 

I could never slip into calling it Mumbai all my life. Like i have never relished Chennai, for it is always Madras for me. It can never be Bengalooru - it has to be Bangalore. I am hardly swayed by political bigotry and jingoism.

Atleast for some years from now i will  miss Bombay. For someone so much used to inner and outer silence, the initial days in Mumbai were  indeed traumatic.  But the city had its own beauties. I started loving its confusion, its crowd, the cut-throat business mindedness, its commotion and everything one can imagine to disrupt calm.  But overbearing all these are that unmistakable undercurrent of humanity  and a rare spirit of the locals. If one is lucky to get a good friends’ circle, life is on an autobahn (like the 1974 German Band would say). I was fortunate to have that.

Looking forward, out of Bombay,  I remember these great words of my favorite author..

This was what I carried with me into [my] new country, an instinctive simplicity, a thoughtless idealism. It was the first time, moving from one place to another, that I hadn't expected something better of the new country than I had found in the old, that I was prepared for disappointment. It was the first time, too, that I was not disappointed.

Sun Set - Chowpaty

On a Rainy day: Worli Home