1.27.2011

rocky balboa

If one poster speaks a million words, two speak 5 million words
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1.04.2011

180 days of mumbai

A few years back when I realized I was mature enough to take a few immature life decisions, I took 2 trivially vital ones. This also being the time when my brother had moved to Mumbai to try his luck in the fashion world, I had tasted the glory of being the only child in the house. After almost 16 miserable years of living life in a bracket under the nail of an obscure tyrant, I had promised myself that no matter where I end up, I shall never live with my brother ever again. The second decision was that I will never under no circumstances live in Mumbai; should have realized earlier that "never say never" is not just one of those lame ass proverbs that desperate dudes use for dudettes who don't reciprocate to their delicate feelings.

There was also a third one to stop moving around with a palpating heart on my sleeve to cease falling around for every second floozy who comes around, but that didn't really work out well and is a complete different story.

The funny thing about irony is that while only a few people know what it means, the majority of others just use it cause its the easiest to remember figure of speech (sorry metaphor, you lose by quite a margin) and the remaining handful, whether they know about it or not, actually get to experience it. Albeit being a close drinking buddy, irony has mostly been a fiendish companion. And so I write this while living and residing in Mumbai sitting in a bachelor pad that I share with my now fairly successful model/actor/writer brother.

6 months in Mumbai is how long has it been so far and as one would expect, it has been an adventure. Though even till today I don't know where the earlier animosity for Mumbai stemmed from, but it was always there. I had never visited the city till back then and had only heard stories... lots of them, about the traffic, about the weather, about the people and about the trains of course.

I will not dare to be naive and admit that I have seen everything that the city has to offer in the tiny duration of 6 months, but I also can't deny that I have had my share of experiences here. Ranging from hospital visits to flicked wallets, the nightmarish ones have indeed taken their toll. But on the flip-side there have even been those which managed to match the gladness I felt when I could finally manage to pop a cherry some aeons ago (boooyeah ;). Fortunately for me, the latter ones out scale the former ones.

Being as pensive as I can ever get, I still can't get myself to realize how these 180 days have passed so quickly. Though I do realize one thing, living here hasn't changed me or dawned any realization of how difficult real life is and how one has to constantly struggle. I however do know that I've become a supreme-man to a set of kick ass super proud and super-prime parents and other fairy caretakers, who have always been around to remove the various chunks of kryptonite that seldom enter in my periphery.

After the initial horrendous months of infinite adjustments, things have thankfully settled down. And even though it is still a wee difficult to live in a house smaller than most office cubicles, to travel for long hours stuffed with 60 other men who I hope know what being plutonic means and to break even in the bank account month after month, I think I have finally discerned the formula to deal with it all. So, the bachelor pad has obviously been super primed, the work place has been taken as a second home, the train journeys have managed to become funnier by the day and well the bank situation, solves itself out somehow or the other.

I was told awhile back that I don't necessarily have to live the city, but rather accept it the way it is. And since doing that, the distance from then till here has been as awesome as all the 6 Rocky movies. The Smallville'ish town of Ahmedabad will always be home, but like Clark Kent's Metropolis, Mumbai is second home now. In spite of there being days when a bus ride back to Ahmedabad seems to be the only thing my neurons manage to ponder about, the feeling fades quickly.

Sitting on top of a supremely awesome kick ass dream job, the seldom instances happening around and the city itself doesn't fail to remind why exactly is Victoria Terminus has been used as the opening shot of a gazillion movies and why Mumbai is called the city where dreams come true.