Wide Open Spaces

Marine Drive Promenade is our habit and like most habits, has creeped in on us unknown. It is a curious lack of ideas, comfort zone and hence an obvious choice. "So what do we do now? " we ask ourselves of any given weekend evening and promptly end up sauntering on the sidewalks of Marine Drive. We look at the crowd of people sitting on the parapet watching the distant skyline. We shake our heads in disbelief and mutter, "How did we land here? We should never come again." Come next weekend, you will find us there, in all probability. It is like the favourite college hang-out, the same coffee shop and the same bunch of friends. Except we are two of us, you and I. We are boring that way.
South Bombay is a dazzling mistress. If you are new and innocent, she shows you things you have never known before. She tortures you with sinful images of gloss and glitter, gazes on you serenely, and smiles haughtily with blue blood flowing through her veins. The day after I had set foot in Bombay, a friend took me to the British Council Library at Nariman Point. We drove around that afternoon and book shopped in Fountain. I was heady, I was in love with this city, which was unlike anything I had ever known. Weeks afterwards, on Saturday evenings, you would have found me walking along those wide cobblestone roads leading up to the sea. Everything from the street lights to the smooth wide roads spelt royalty, a lifestyle I have never peeked into. I imagined glittering salons, flowing champagne and whispering guests, perfumes and diamonds. In fact my first question to my friend was, "How much will a house cost here?" He had smiled indulgently, amused at my childish ambition. I kept asking this question long after, atleast until my love affair with South Bombay began to turn sour. It is on these very parapet that we once sat, curiously divorced from each other, like travellers on a train, civility urging us to keep up the conversation. We had spent the evening at Oxford's and searched in vain for Samovar Cafe suggested by a colleague. It is also here that we learned to learn each other, slowly but surely. A few months ago, one evening here, a charming lady making a short film on Bombay, asked us to speak a few lines on Bombay. While you rattled off facts and reasons, I was curiously camera shy. I could not think of any word to describe Bombay until the camera veered off my face to yours. It was our seven seconds of fame. Remember the time when we met a tired Kannan for a late dinner at NotJustJazzByTheBay? The taste of fresh lime water still lingers in my mouth.
The drive from Wadala to Marine Dirve, kept the fire going for some time. The stink of fish and matchbox slums of Wadala give way to pristine white washed century old quaint Parsi bungalows, that announce the date of building proudly on engraved marble slabs, to the human sea in Dadar and the skyscrapers in Worli, the gravel lanes of South Bombay announce the haughty glittering Queen's necklace. I loved the cross section of lives, the change in human scenery, which is the only scenery you can see in Bombay. But even that has now turned tiresome.
It is time I found a new place to fall in love with. Something with hills, mountain mist hanging heavily fighting the sunlight, a well thumbed book of poetry, the smell of soil and fenced abyss. People? Thanks, but no thanks.