Bombay, my love!

Came across this website called India Memory Project. Sheer beauty. Phantoms from the past tugging at you, at the beautiful Indian within you. The stories of the lives lived in black and white India, through pictures. Going over the stories therein, I couldn't help but miss my city all over again. Bombay.

My first love, my joy and my soul, Bombay is one of the many facets that define me. Makes me who I am. No matter how busy or frustrated I get about anything, just a reminiscence of that love washes it all away and I'm at peace again. Love like that is meditation. Joy like that is bliss. This post is difficult to even put in words..but oftentimes I forget who I am or how I am or where I'm going and in that, Bombay roots me. Defines me for who I am and why I am and snaps be back to my core. They may change her name. But she'd always be Bombay to me. The city I call home, the city I've fallen head o'er heels for.

Curbing the lunatic in me from aimlessly romanticising on any more, here's, to conclude, a snippet from a friend with the common love, on his upcoming visit planned for January, 2014:

I can just imagine right now... Being on a plane going back home. As the plane drops below the clouds, I can see a big blotch of light. The plane travels on, hurtling at hundreds of miles an hour towards that blotch. Slowly but surely, that mass of light breaks up into individual, slightly smaller yet still fairly large patches of light. A few spaces of darkness between them. The plane continues flying oblivious of my emotions. It goes on and the lights continue to separate. They fill up the entire landscape visible to me below. Now I can see lights and discern their sources. Some come from buildings, most from streetlamps and cars. The city that never sleeps. Truly never ever sleeps. I pass over a building that I know is my home. The plane lands with a slight jolt, as always. I step out of the plane after it halts. And I breathe. My first breath of air in Bombay after more than a year and a half now. It reeks of refuse and waste. Of smoke and pollution. Of sweat and blood. Of a million dreams shattered. Of love at first sight. Of love after years of being together. Of flowers being sold somewhere on the streets by urchins out to make a last few sales to religious drivers hoping to bribe gods in their favour. Of a billion dreams being dreamt. There are a million things wrong about Bombay and there are a billion things right about it. And each of these things are in the air I breathe in. I am home again.

Fitting portrayal of the mesmerizing drug, Bombay; my love you will always remain.