Delirium.

It has been 18 days since I left Bombay and as eager as I have always been to jump wagons between Bombay and Delhi, I suddenly miss that annoying city. I have never really identified Bombay as home nor do I think I ever will but as is the case with blood relations, despite hating them, you grow up and realise that they actually were tolerable after all. In fact, you might even feel that you liked them at some point. This is exactly what is happening with me, vis-à-vis Bombay.

I don’t miss it, but something strange happened today while my uncle was driving me from his home to my workplace.
I was reading a book and my head had stooped over, almost making me look like a crane dipping its head into water for food, my water being the book. As the car moved onto the main road by crossing this huge intersection beneath a flyover and my head continued to stay bent over, I had this strange sensation that I was actually in Bombay, at this certain part of the highway, that I traverse by almost everyday. I didn’t raise my head for the fear of loosing this sensation. It was like balancing a soap bubble on your fingertip, you know if you move, it will pop.
As the car moved straight along the way, I began smiling to myself, not looking up from my book because how real it felt was proportional to how unreal it actually was.  I kept my head down and continued reeling in this happy sense of delirium in this sensory feast, where my brain despite knowing my real location, was letting me enjoy a moment of some strange satisfaction.  And then we hit a speed bump and my reflexes made me look up and everything vanished.

Was this a hallucination? I don’t know.

What I do know, is that it was beautiful, getting to live in one city, mentally when you are physically in another.

Bombay Rains

<p>Being a Mumbaikar, the <i>most cliched topic that you can talk or write about are the Mumbai rains. </i><br>
<i>And falling prey to that trend, here is my ode to the weather that suits this city better than the name Mumbai. </i><br>
<i>Come June and the whole city pins it's life upon the MET predictions published in the newspaper. </i><br>
<i>"Pata hai? 3rd se hoga barish! Paper mein likha hai"</i><br>
I love every possible aspect of the torrential pre-monsoon showers. <br>
The yellow hue which the sky wears in the evenings as gigantic, grey clouds which seem pregnant with rain, gather. Yellow, then transforms into a beautiful orange. <br>
It seems like in those fleeting minutes before sunset, the city has been dyed in that orange colour. <br>
And as twilight descends, a light drizzle starts and before you know it the drizzle transcends into sheets of rain which come cascading down accompanied with flashes of lightning. </p>
<p>There are varying attitudes towards rain in this city, the working class has excessive disdain for rains because of the soaked appearance you have when you walk into your place of work after having been caught in an unprecedented shower.
For me though, that feeling of being soaked holds a special charm which can't be replicated by anything in the world.
And as long as I am going to be here, I'll keep loving each bit of it.