I have never felt more motivated. Even as I ran those seven rounds of Russells Square Park, I didn't realise the transition from one round to the next. It all seemed like one big round. But what I have begun to realise is that I want to do something... I have realised for the first time that I have the potential to do something on my own. I have the ability to make a plan and execute it.
Since I have begun the book THREE CUPS OF TEA, I realise that there is someone out there who is living my dream. He went through all those moments of anxiety and anguish that I fear are not normal to tread upon; but today I know they are. Nature throws into your path all the obstacles she can find; you just have to go over them, because there obviously isn't a way around them.
I must go back to the hills. I must take on a responsibility. And I must make this happen... for myself. I have been a restless soul all these years, unable to find that one thing which is to make me happy. I have dabbled with many jobs and now an additional degree. This has given a chance to read, a chance to know what is happening in other places around the world. But I still feel the urge to return, to return to the people in the hills, the cool wind and the fragrance of the pine that blows with it. With every new learning experience, I am always thinking about how it would be useful if I return to the hills. I have not gone back so far because of a fear - a fear of what will follow... I will be happy, but what about the rest? I have a fear that not all my dreams will coincide with each other. There will be no harmony and I would have to give up one for the other. So I let the dream in the hills - just be... but it hasn't "just been". It has lived with each new day and it has grown in proportion and value. Today I know it can be achieved... it is not impossible. I had once wondered whether with life moving one from one avenue to another, this dream would let go off me. But it hasn't, it has stuck on... bringing me back to the hills every year to discover yet another aspect of itself.
Today I am sure I will go back to make this happen. Good luck to me!
it has been one year ...
it has been a peaceful one year, should i say?
since the 'day'. the days...
the days for which i lit a candle.
a candle that withstood the sea breeze at nariman point, as it blew clear the leftovers of an attack.
a candle at the doors of justice, the doors that never closed on any of the days of the attack.
a candle for the city at gateway, the city that never sleeps...
Mumbai teaches you to to live, live through and live with bare realities that may hit you in the face, but then mumbai is right there to put you back on your feet and get you moving.
thank you, bombay!
I am thinking of the Mumbaiblasts. It will be nearly one year since those series of night-marous three days. But everyone has moved on, Mumbai has grown older with one more hard experience and the Mumbaikars (some new, some old) get along with their lives, the city supporting them.
*****
London is a lot like Mumbai. More organised. People stand in Q's; use their "sorry-s","excuse-me-s" and "thank-you-s"; wait for their turn. But then again, it is the same hustle-bustle. People are just as wound up getting somewhere. The hurried pace in their walk and the vacant streets on a Sunday afternoon, all remind me of Bombay; maybe a larger version of South Bombay.
Homecity, however, was nicer. Warmer. Weather-wise and emotion-wise. People exchanged a smile in the train, shared their oily goodies, cribbed about the weather. I felt re-assured, even if the lady opposite me in the local didn't talk. Here, I am more aloof. Everyone is more aloof. And in the instance anyone speaks, you just turn away assuming s/he is mad, drunk, of suspicious nature or unacquainted with the code-of-conduct(and therefore not to be mixed with). The other day, I was travelling back by "national rail" into London and it was hardly an hour past dusk. I sat by myself looking at my own shadow in the dark window pane. I eaves-dropped on an occasional line passed between so-passengers, before they hushed it down again. A group of men opposite me spoke an unknown language. I looked and them. And one of them said "you alright?" I turned away, the way Londoners do. I didn't know his intention, his ways were out-of-the-way: OF SUSPICIOUS NATURE.
*****
There are many disjointed thoughts at this moment. I must tell you about goat cheese. Try it, if you haven't. It has a putrid smell, which will fill your nostrils and a dry, flaky exterior making you wonder, how you should spread "this" on your toast. But then its creamy and pure. It is heavy and fatty and pure... And when I say pure, it is the taste that remains with you for much after you have eaten it. Just like baked cheesecake. These are flavours that you feel should remain with you. For these flavours, you end your meal with them and do not feel the urge for another one. They fill you... your mind, your body and your memories.
it is funny, how in a short span of time, many told me to start writing again. I don't know; just didn't feel like it all these days. I wouldn't call it a writer's block. There are a lot of things I can think of that I want to write; it is just that I don't feel like it.
Well, today is a new day. A new experience has begun. A different land, new faces and organised business. London!
People here are so wound up in their own lives. They are always heading somewhere and that too at an enormous speed. Eating while they walk. Talking while they walk. Even reading while they walk. Thank god, for pedestrians having a first right of way, in this country.
****
OF SQUIRRELS AND PIGEONS...
The squirrels here are BIG and FRIENDLY. Yes! this definitely might sound like an enticing sight. I see a lot of these squirrels in the park near my home. To begin with I was quite taken aback by their size. The only memories I have a squirrels - "kharutai" - are chasing them around the lawn in Delhi when I was a few years old. My mother would take me to watch birds and squirrels in this park. Allow us to be within a distance of few metres and the squirrels would scamper up the nearest tree trunk. They were small and you could tell there is squirrel on the tree when you trace its shape along the trunk in the dull glow of the setting sun.
But here, in Russels Square, the squirrels wait for you. They pose for your cameras and you must return the favour by giving them a treat. Recently a friedly narrated to me, what she termed as, "the MOST BIZARRE EXPERIENCE". She was in San Diego/Francisco, when in the midst of "being lost" in the "sudden thick fog" that settles in that city, very often (apparently) she came across some squirrels worth being photographed. But the interaction didn't end with the photo and it was taken forth for a few miles thereafter by the squirrels who decided to chase her for the distance. She actually had to run, while these 'large squirrels' leapt in the air, covering several footsteps at a time, after her. AND now, she says "Squirrels scare me". Tell an Indian kid that and they will laugh at you. Who cold imagine those cute cuddly creature turning into rascals.
But somebody else gave me a very pleasing theory about this. Like the squirrels the pigeons in London are also quite big and unmoved by human presence in close vicinity. They hardly perch and in case you decide to walk through a flock of their group, they just move aside, without the slightest flutter, giving you way. Now my friend says that this is a good example of how the feathered and four- legged ones in this country are not fearful of humans. They trust humans and this trust has obviously been established over years of humans not having caused harm to them. An interesting theory, I would say. But more like an equilibrium, before it is the turn of the four- legged to take us over.
It is as if the whole event has been imprinted on my mind. The reel plays again and again. I could not believe it in the first go. When I heard the news that gun shots were fired near the Taj, I brushed away the news as exaggeration. On the pillion seat of the Royal Enfield, as I rode back with H to Grant Road, we heard a noise. It was far away and so I refused to acknowledge it.
When I got back home, I switched on the TV. They reported a gang-war amongst some Nigerian drug peddlers. A shoot out at Leopold. A shoot out at Leopold?! That is some five minutes away from Mondy’s, the place I would have been at (in all imaginable and unimaginable possibility) that evening, if not for A being stuck at work until so late. “It will be late and we won’t get a table…” A had said. But the gang-war seemed a credible analysis. Afterall Leopolds’ was the place where foreigners flocked for all meals (and conversations).They played a drum-roll sort of music and the dim lighting always gave it the ideal fitting into Shantaram-like novels.
But the news continued to follow the trail. Leopold, Napeansea Road, Vile Parle, Santacruz, Taj, Oberoi, Cama Hospital, VT Station and Nariman House – explosions and shoot-outs continued to wreak havoc in my city. The news channeled flashed images of people lying about on blood-splattered tiles, vehicles twisted out of shape, horror-struck faces with tears running down numb cheeks and men in olive-green uniforms trying to gain control of the situation. The news strip continued to mark the rise in number of deaths – an ACP, the chief of the Anti-Terrorist Squad and another senior police officer were all killed in one shot at the first go. The names didn’t sound familiar – no memories of even having read about them in the newspaper, but I watched their funerals, their families and stories of their bravery with a sense of familiarity.
For three whole days my television was on. Even while I travelled from Mumbai to Pune on the eve of the last evacuation operation by the National Security Guards, I constantly kept in touch with people seated before their televsision sets, trying to remain with the scenes and the situation. I felt as though I was leaving my city at a time when it needed me and so even when I returned at 11pm on Sunday night, I drove into South Mumbai and walked the deserted streets near gateway, the by-lanes behind the Taj, where Bade-Miya was still serving sheek-kebabs; a lonely Leopold Café which now stood shutters-down and the Oberoi –Trident couple still stood up high, even though the window panes of the lobby were shattered. Mumbai, the city that never sleeps, was not asleep even today; but in fact she was waking up very early, still groggy. Candles blinked along the streets and small groudp of people stood silently, some with cameras, some with their little children and some others with flowers. I hadn’t brought a candle, but like many others I scrounged the small lit-up squares for a candle that had extinguished or probably fallen over. I could make it stand again; I could make it bright again. What a blissful feeling.
**************
THE BOYS
Those three nights stole Mumbai’s joy and spritely charm. A bunch of innocent killed a mass of innocent. I can’t help but feel bad for the terrorists, even as I cheer the soldiers who put up a skilful fight. For what fault of these young boys were they brought to a point to “kill unto death.” These boys were just like you and me, of an age where we are on that threshold of life where we begin to question what we have been taught and learn to distinguish between the right and the wrong. But unlike us, these boys didn’t have the time to learn, to question to verify or to rebel. They just had to prove – prove to themselves and to those who taught them that they were worthwhile students. To me the situation was as simple as this: their teachers capitalized on their age, the emotional phase it brings with it, the surge of rebellion and ambitiousness that overwhelms everything else.
It was a similar phase for the boys from the National Security Guards too, don’t you think? They too prove to themselves and to those who taught them that they were worthwhile students that they had applied efficiently each bit of what they had learnt. They were congratulated and hugged, drowned in cheer and appreciation for what they had accomplished.
Neither of the boys have any regrets.
They all came face to face for a cause. Each one had his own motivation and reason to be a part of it. For the lives that were lost as reason for these causes and for the minds that did not have chance to think, to feel to voice, I hope that the circle completes for them – through the thoughts and voices of those who survive them!
