Love affair with the city of dreams, challenges, triumphs and possibilities..
If I knew what desires and dreams feel like – they would be like Mumbai mornings – Laced with hassle and abundantly mixed with hopes. The honking of buses and rikshaws in the mad rush; people bashing the locals; the robust stench of fish in a crowded market; those small encounters with entertaining autowalas who acquaint you with their happy stories of the Mayanagri. A day in Mumbai starts with adrenaline to live your dreams.
The city allows you to choose your feelings everyday. The happiness of being yourself in a place which unmasks so much choices and opportunities and brace your energy to find yourself is exhilarating. Mumbai is that emotion which you cannot tell is familiar or all new – because it’s both at the same time. Some days you encounter the harshness of the city and challenges of finding a home, struggling for a familiarity, and on other days, the mixed perfumes in the locals and streets strangely comfort you and slowly accept you with open arms. Mumbai, in its own beautiful way starts becoming BOMBAY!
Every day in this city is quiet an adventure ride – both uplifting and discomforting. Afternoons are sweaty with tireless hours and the evenings are beautiful and refreshing as the city guides the cosmos to their way back home with the same energy and thrill. Most people here spend a majority time of their day in travelling but their acceptance and never-dying spirit makes the journey so effortless and easy. They absorb the pace and distance with a smile; always moving forward towards better days – This city never stops indeed.
June to September is the most phenomenal time of the year, when the bazaars of Bombay are blessed with sweet Hapus, followed by the smell of first rains, cuddling the city and providing relief from the sweltering summer heat. It is only fair to say that the mangoes and the rain are Bombay’s joy and its hearbeat.
Despite of flooding, delays and disruptions, monsoon has a special place in everyone’s heart. The city truly comes to life and transforms in front of your eyes – those long walks in rains by the sea; running with umbrellas, half drenched to that local café for a cup of chai; raindrops gently caressing your face like a gentle breeze; high tides hitting the walls of marine drive with the sea cloaked in rain and mist are the most magical experiences. It is a season of umbrellas, long drives, love, music and breathtaking sea winds!
Mumbai is quiet a blend of every kind of people living in Luxurious flats to chawls & slums. Every person finds something to do here. It’s full of dreamers and hard-labourers, actors and gangsters, stray dogs and exotic birds, artists and workers and fisherfolk and crorepatis (millionaires). It’s India’s financial powerhouse, fashion capital and a pulse point of art and culture. City is evolved with its own language, Bambaiyya Hindi, which is a mix of…EVERYTHING. It’s eclectic composition of different groups and cultures makes it a difficult city to define, but for many, it’s a city that represents POSSIBILITY.
Bombay is an emotion which is difficult to detach from. Bombay is a habit and a way of life which liberates you. Once you live here, it becomes a special part of you which cannot be found anywhere else. The madness and pace of the city will overwhelm you and will push you to know life and cope with life like no other city. The vastness of the sea will humble you down. Bombay will smile at you every morning through those ajar windows of your home which you haven’t fixed yet because something is always broken in this city waiting to be mended and sometimes accepted. Sooner or later you accept the imperfection of the city in the most perfect ways possible. Even if you are alone, the city will silently comfort you, laugh with you, liberate you. It is a mixed emotion which enchants everybody with its charm and liveliness.
Bombay is you. Bombay is me. Bombay is every person who makes this city.
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