My 2nd Bombay trip in as many months and the effect of the city remains the same, despite the fact that I spent hours each day just commuting. I don’t think the fascination can be explained by the standard words – the energy, the enthusiasm, the work ethic, the night life. When I feel a sense of comfort even in an area which is jammed with cars, swimming in pollution and throbbing with get-set-go youngsters, I know that there needs to be some other reason that prevents me from hating this place! If this had been a novel (especially penned by a young Indian writer), I would have undertaken a journey (that the blurb would have described as “a spiritual pursuit”) that would led me to the discovery of having been born and brought up in a stinking by lane in Bandra in a previous life. There would probably be a cat there that is immortal and remembers me when I walk in through the rusted gate (everything in Bombay rusts).
Anyway, for some time I actually seriously evaluated the option of moving to Bombay next year instead of Delhi, if Dolly and Anjan don’t come back. The seriousness of these intentions was vastly reduced when I landed in Bangalore, “twenty degrees and very pleasant” in the words of the Jat pilot. However, this is probably the reason I seem to getting an itch to move to Bombay…the comfort zone I have developed in Bangalore…and my current role. There’s nothing wrong in being comfortable except that I have grown to firmly believe (through unfortunate experience) that difficult times are usually around the corner and this current sense of comfort will make me a “softie” and hence ill equipped. I like the way my insecurity about myself falls in love with my wary view of the world and conspires to keep me paranoid at the best of times. Only the Paranoid Survive, as a management book (exceedingly popular when I was in B-school; naturally I never read it) informs us.
The people interactions too were more or less pleasant during the trip. The seminar itself I don’t want to write about, I have too many observations to note and none of them earth shattering. But the state of juvenile delinquency that Venkat and I were reduced to was great fun. It brought back school/college times, except that now we were indulging it at a seminar in a 5-star, surrounded by professionals from other companies, for which we (i.e. our company) had paid Rs.12500. The Thursday night out was also great fun, though it was slightly marred by my state of sleep deprivation and exhaustion. We roamed around town, on foot and in cab, had great food n drinks at different places, finished with an ice cream and took a train back to our guest house.
Friday was a little disappointing, when I met V for a shorter time than expected. However, it was pleasant enough – coffee followed by a walk through Bandra. All was as expected – the passion, the humor, the acute observations and the tendency to live and think and breathe in extremes, which I guess is a typical big-city trait. Its there in Delhi too, but in a different way. There the extremes are more lifestyle oriented – the over gregarious, wealth displaying types and the more middle-class, equally gregarious and desperate in equal measure types. In Bombay (and increasingly in Bangalore), I find this extremity coming through more in personality types – the mature, values-driven, experienced ones who are also very boring and the cool, fun, interesting, been-there-done-that types who lack emotional depth and maturity. Though this sounds like sweeping generalizations, they are not meant to be. I am not saying that people are like this, so compartmentalized….what I am saying is that people tend to graduate towards one of these ends of the spectrums. In a way, the current generation is as merciless in demanding stereotypes from its own as the much-berated previous generation was. Except that nowdays they are smart enough to package even its stereotypes into items that scream “individuality”, never mind the reality inside. Come to think of it, who cares about reality anymore? Its all about projection. Even when relative strangers like V and I meet, is it really about sharing reality with another person or is it more about telling the other person about the reality you want him to see? It’s all becoming one huge exhibition where everyone is busy selling themselves without bothering to look at the other. This is quite a depressing train of thought and is probably the reason why I feel incredibly low this weekend.
Sid n J was ok…a good coffee-lunch-dessert routine saved the afternoon from being a disaster. Disaster because both of them tend to go towards one of the extremes described above; disaster because I would like to get along better with Sid but he doesn’t allow me to; disaster because I was basically quite depressed about the various thoughts in my mind about people; disaster because it was hot (which always gets me irritated); disaster because Sid n J themselves didn’t much have chemistry. Considering all the potential for disaster, Saturday ended up being unexpectedlt pleasant and Bombay filled (as J obliged my cravings by driving through the most obscure lanes in Bandra-Mahim-Juhu!), not to mention food that lubricated the way!
And today I am in my bed, reading-eating-typing. Ahead lie chores (straightening up the house, grocery shopping, laundry) and an evening out with M. That shall bring along its own baggage of thoughts and emotions, so I am glad I have exorcised thru this post some of the baggage I have carried for the past two days.
While I have spoken about the extremes around me - cities/culture/people - I am constantly reminded of the fact that the world around us is a reflection of ourselves...there is no absolute reality, because our view of the world around is dictated by the view of our own selves.
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