So that is where it all ends up at. The lost feeling and the feeling of being somewhere else and wishing that none of this ever happened and that all this was, but a dream. But then again these things are bound to happen in ones life. U need to move out of the enclosure that u have erected around you, the sense of well being, the safety perimeter around you, let life take you along with it, getting bumped around in that rough ride, loosing your sharp edges, getting a smooth surface and of course a shiny one, which is what life is all about.
This had been a kind of intense internal conflict going on inside my head during the last week I was in Mumbai. People, who know me well, know for a fact that I hate Mumbai with some kind of diligent intensity. I’ve often wondered if this was some kind of a Déjà vu kind of feeling from Chennai (for I have hated Chennai during my masters with a chronic intensity). This turned out to be something else entirely different as Chennai after the initial bitter and boring stages gave me a looottaa sweet memories. Well, this sort of thing just happens in life, when somebody just walks into your life one fine day and Pooofff…!! Nothings the same ever again, it happens, I believe just once in your life and it happened to me in Chennai. So I believe it’s not quite fair in my life to compare Mumbai with Chennai.
Maybe that’s it (places doesn’t have anything with what u feel about them-places, but it’s the people u end up meeting there that make it a lot precious and endearing), but I am not sure I can agree with that. I have had some unexplainable relationships in Mumbai, got to meet with some of the extreme cases in my life and some unforgettable people here. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have any memorable relationships (though I have a hell lot of memorable incidents, events, accidents, activities etc etc) in Mumbai, that we never got along.
Okay let’s get back to the beginning. During the first week of April, it was suddenly decided that I have to get back to kerala for an unspecific amount of time. U might be wondering what is wrong with that, dude aren’t u going back home and doesn’t that make you happy? Actually it does to a lot of people, but then they are not me. I do not want to get into details of why I don’t want to spend an unspecified time in Kerala as it is a complex feeling, rather I wish to restrict myself to only my feelings about Mumbai. Alright let’s go, one of the best things that had happened in Mumbai (the last few months, in fact) was that I was living alone, totally alone (well, friends visit often), but then again at the end of the day, I get to decide at what time I should eat, sleep, cook, chat, clean up my house (a shitty job) or any of the hundreds of other decision making topics that pops on to our faces every day in our life.
It was some kind of a ecstatic stage that I was going through, though it was at times hard to escape the loneliness after a few of my friends moved out of Mumbai, but then again it was not as bad as I expected (cos I have gone through worst when I had to move outta Chennai). I got to meet a whole lot of variety people this year and it often made me wonder, “how in the wild world did I get along with them?” but trust me it was all fun, I got to experiment a loootta things. Maybe it is like what is said in Malayalam, the fire which is about to die, burns brighter. That is exactly what happened in my life. I know for sure that one part of my life, the carefree, wild, reckless part of my life with no responsibilities or tie downs are all over. It is going to be brand new start, wiping the slate clean and starting over. In the new life or rather the Part II of it will be a more sober and down to earth, predictable, no nonsense self. Do I really want to be like that, I know not. Again who are we to complain to The One about what is being presented to us?
The dilemma I am in right now is that I wish there was some kind of Selective Memory Loss (SML) where in, I can choose all those memories that I don’t want, when I wipe the slate of my brain clean or rather my mind. In other way it’s like I get to selectively choose all those sweet and dear and bitter memories which I want to carry forward and delete the rest. It is not easy to live with the ghosts of the past, but then again, all of us have to. It is not like the dead bodies in the closet kind of ghosts. This is more like the ghosts of our actions, our words, our deeds, the choices we made, the occasions we turned our backs to the opportunities etc. Among these there are certain ghosts who are dear to you, no matter how much it still hurts, years later but still those are a part of your life or we can say that they are what made you YOU. U end up wishing that had there been one chance to change something, you would be bringing back that very moment when u had to take that stupid but practical decision and turn your back, but now take that what my heart wants and tell the whole world that they can *^%# off.
But alas it never happens and that’s why the life is called A Bittersweet SymphonY.
I am here not because of the path in front of me, I am here because of the path behind me. No matter what the future holds for me, I am here only because of a sum of so many others behind me. Maybe its this uncertainty about life that makes it so endearing or maybe that is what makes us human and this was exactly the damn realisation that happened to me in Mumbai.
For sure, certain things never change, but then certain others do, LuckilY.
