Smile.
Every morning.
I rose groggily to an incessant sound somewhere between a warm, new day and the canvasses of my nightly dreams.
It was mother, frantically tugging the end of my sheet and urging me to wake up. "yaillu yaillu yaillu" (Kannada for 'wake up')in sets of three she'd chime after every 10 seconds. I'd smile in my half asleep state, knowing my smile was echoed in her voice of knowing what came next. With the sheet over my head my hand rose from the soft folds of the bed to indicate that she would find me fully awake in the next 5 minutes. I flashed those five digits in my sleepy hand.
7:42. That was the train I had to take from Nerul Station to Matunga to get to college for an early dose of lectures in post colonial literature, prosody and romanticism versus realism. But somehow, the idea of trading prosody for sleep seemed a much more viable option for my young mind. So I would inevitably end up an hour late, having missed the day's first class and lazily gathering up evidences of my student life, for eg. a jhola (cotton handbags slung sideways across the shoulder, of immense space, where contents disappeared to make space for more arbitrary things..some of which are best left in my memory) and my walkman (who said Ipods?? tut tut) playing either Pearl Jam, Ani Difranco, Alice in Chains and/or artists along these lines. I remember I couldn't exit my home unless my earphones were firmly plugged into my ears. It is for this very reason, that I would have the rickshaw driver flail his hands to get my attention and point at my dear mother who had come running out of the society (a congregation of buildings, where each is a different wing, captured under one name) in her night dress having hastily worn a sari petticoat under her dress and shyly waving my lunchbox in her hand that I had forgotten to pack into the infamous jhola. (I soon progressed into a good ol' sturdy backpack, which still, unfortunately didn't do much for my lunchbox episodes.)
Did I mention that I was in college? Yes I religiously took a lunchbox to college, made by my mother who woke up early as if my personal alarm clock, made rotis and veggies to go with while constantly checking if I had all the pre-requistes of making a safe journey to college. A bottle of water, my train pass (which i often forgot, so you see how helpful she was?), my books for class (this is a habit she never could kick since school) etc. I always remember her standing in her disheveled state of the ruckus I created every morning, watching me, smiling and waving till I was completely out of her sight.
8:42. I'd positioned myself near the doors of the arriving train so I could jump into a compartment while the train was still slowing down at the platform and secure a place (preferably by the window) for me. As we passed Vashi and went onto the bridge connecting this little island to that of the main city, I would stare out and see the Arabian Sea. It reminded me of my father and his penchant for the sea and also of his patience which seemed limitless and vast, just like the sea.
I didn't realize it then, but I'd tense up and feel heady almost, when it was time for me to push through the crowd (at Chembur station) two stations before the station I was to alight at. Arrive Kurla station, platform number 8. Somehow I am catapulted out of the train amidst a shower of choicest abuses in Marathi..and avoid skilfully, being drenched by fishy water (literally) courtesy the fisher women traveling alongside to work! I have now to make my way among people who feel like raisins in the bread that is Bombay, and reach platform no. 4. My train to Matunga on the Central Main line is expected in the next three min. So if push came to shove, we didn't have much of a choice. Sometimes we just go past the pushing and regale in the shoving.
According to my calculations, I had just the one station in between (that of Sion)to bear before I could get off at Matunga. So I would hang, yes i said hang, and I mean hang from the pole at the entrance of the compartment so half my body would remain inside and lose itself in a mix of sweat and talcum powder and jasmine flowers while the other half would breathe in early morning rituals of the slum dwellers and smell grease off the train tracks. I have felt such a sense of freedom and oneness with Bombay hanging off a train that I've yet to feel elsewhere.
4-3-2-1. "Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus jaane waali dheemi local plaitfaarm number ek par aa rahi hai." We'd hear this as we pulled into Matunga station and everyone at the door would tense, bend their knees and arch their feet while holding onto to something for dear life (thanks to the pushing and shoving from the inside) to spring onto the platform while the train slows itself. Finally, I begin my walk towards my education on paper.
Once out of the station, I would walk among vendors opening their stalls for the day's business. Flowers in orange and white strung together in white thread with green leaves popping at intervals were displayed on large aluminium plates while fresh luscious green cabbages and spinach adorned wiry drumsticks alongside plum red tomatoes and the burst of orange carrots preened themselves in big brown wicker baskets. Fancy shop owners did their daily rituals of revolving a stick of incense around their blessed doors and hopeful cricketers were out on the field, prancing and heaving in exhilaration.
Students poured in from everywhere, as if a river of hope and energy to be harnessed. I was one among them. I stepped into the foyer of the building, that never seemed imposing to me and made my way to my class which was perched on the 3rd floor of the building and built as if a hole in the wall. Our class was tucked away where the corridor ended and u had nowhere else to go. Now turn left. There it was, unassuming and I suppose not alluring to most, but a class of 20 who delved into the art and philosophies and histories of all that becomes literature. While discovering my senses and my inclinations, in college I found friends without whom my life would be the whistle you couldn't get a sound out of. This place, Bombay was and will always be home, where I came into my own. Where I formed a beautiful relationship of friendship, based on trust and respect with my mother and father, where I could boast of a brother who was one of my best friends and where I eventually fell in love with my love who was all the way up north!
Bombay has given me so much. My heart yearns for its familiar caresses like those of my mother's hand against my sunken back, soothing me, assuring me that it'll be another warm, new day, tomorrow.
I rose groggily to an incessant sound somewhere between a warm, new day and the canvasses of my nightly dreams.
It was mother, frantically tugging the end of my sheet and urging me to wake up. "yaillu yaillu yaillu" (Kannada for 'wake up')in sets of three she'd chime after every 10 seconds. I'd smile in my half asleep state, knowing my smile was echoed in her voice of knowing what came next. With the sheet over my head my hand rose from the soft folds of the bed to indicate that she would find me fully awake in the next 5 minutes. I flashed those five digits in my sleepy hand.
7:42. That was the train I had to take from Nerul Station to Matunga to get to college for an early dose of lectures in post colonial literature, prosody and romanticism versus realism. But somehow, the idea of trading prosody for sleep seemed a much more viable option for my young mind. So I would inevitably end up an hour late, having missed the day's first class and lazily gathering up evidences of my student life, for eg. a jhola (cotton handbags slung sideways across the shoulder, of immense space, where contents disappeared to make space for more arbitrary things..some of which are best left in my memory) and my walkman (who said Ipods?? tut tut) playing either Pearl Jam, Ani Difranco, Alice in Chains and/or artists along these lines. I remember I couldn't exit my home unless my earphones were firmly plugged into my ears. It is for this very reason, that I would have the rickshaw driver flail his hands to get my attention and point at my dear mother who had come running out of the society (a congregation of buildings, where each is a different wing, captured under one name) in her night dress having hastily worn a sari petticoat under her dress and shyly waving my lunchbox in her hand that I had forgotten to pack into the infamous jhola. (I soon progressed into a good ol' sturdy backpack, which still, unfortunately didn't do much for my lunchbox episodes.)
Did I mention that I was in college? Yes I religiously took a lunchbox to college, made by my mother who woke up early as if my personal alarm clock, made rotis and veggies to go with while constantly checking if I had all the pre-requistes of making a safe journey to college. A bottle of water, my train pass (which i often forgot, so you see how helpful she was?), my books for class (this is a habit she never could kick since school) etc. I always remember her standing in her disheveled state of the ruckus I created every morning, watching me, smiling and waving till I was completely out of her sight.
8:42. I'd positioned myself near the doors of the arriving train so I could jump into a compartment while the train was still slowing down at the platform and secure a place (preferably by the window) for me. As we passed Vashi and went onto the bridge connecting this little island to that of the main city, I would stare out and see the Arabian Sea. It reminded me of my father and his penchant for the sea and also of his patience which seemed limitless and vast, just like the sea.
I didn't realize it then, but I'd tense up and feel heady almost, when it was time for me to push through the crowd (at Chembur station) two stations before the station I was to alight at. Arrive Kurla station, platform number 8. Somehow I am catapulted out of the train amidst a shower of choicest abuses in Marathi..and avoid skilfully, being drenched by fishy water (literally) courtesy the fisher women traveling alongside to work! I have now to make my way among people who feel like raisins in the bread that is Bombay, and reach platform no. 4. My train to Matunga on the Central Main line is expected in the next three min. So if push came to shove, we didn't have much of a choice. Sometimes we just go past the pushing and regale in the shoving.
According to my calculations, I had just the one station in between (that of Sion)to bear before I could get off at Matunga. So I would hang, yes i said hang, and I mean hang from the pole at the entrance of the compartment so half my body would remain inside and lose itself in a mix of sweat and talcum powder and jasmine flowers while the other half would breathe in early morning rituals of the slum dwellers and smell grease off the train tracks. I have felt such a sense of freedom and oneness with Bombay hanging off a train that I've yet to feel elsewhere.
4-3-2-1. "Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus jaane waali dheemi local plaitfaarm number ek par aa rahi hai." We'd hear this as we pulled into Matunga station and everyone at the door would tense, bend their knees and arch their feet while holding onto to something for dear life (thanks to the pushing and shoving from the inside) to spring onto the platform while the train slows itself. Finally, I begin my walk towards my education on paper.
Once out of the station, I would walk among vendors opening their stalls for the day's business. Flowers in orange and white strung together in white thread with green leaves popping at intervals were displayed on large aluminium plates while fresh luscious green cabbages and spinach adorned wiry drumsticks alongside plum red tomatoes and the burst of orange carrots preened themselves in big brown wicker baskets. Fancy shop owners did their daily rituals of revolving a stick of incense around their blessed doors and hopeful cricketers were out on the field, prancing and heaving in exhilaration.
Students poured in from everywhere, as if a river of hope and energy to be harnessed. I was one among them. I stepped into the foyer of the building, that never seemed imposing to me and made my way to my class which was perched on the 3rd floor of the building and built as if a hole in the wall. Our class was tucked away where the corridor ended and u had nowhere else to go. Now turn left. There it was, unassuming and I suppose not alluring to most, but a class of 20 who delved into the art and philosophies and histories of all that becomes literature. While discovering my senses and my inclinations, in college I found friends without whom my life would be the whistle you couldn't get a sound out of. This place, Bombay was and will always be home, where I came into my own. Where I formed a beautiful relationship of friendship, based on trust and respect with my mother and father, where I could boast of a brother who was one of my best friends and where I eventually fell in love with my love who was all the way up north!
Bombay has given me so much. My heart yearns for its familiar caresses like those of my mother's hand against my sunken back, soothing me, assuring me that it'll be another warm, new day, tomorrow.
posted by freakshow at
6:40 PM
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