Kalyan Express

A sea of people, a small town in itself, shops selling the odd refreshment, stained and strained walls - reflecting the kaleidoscopic phases of the Mumbaite – The Mumbai Life Line and its stations are anything but structures made of sand and stone - They are all about spent life , uncontrolled emotions, radical reasoning and endless hope.

Step into one of the locals and you will encounter the beauties and the beasts of Mumbai - With each life wrapped with utmost care, bags protected with the daily wrath just waiting to be unleashed, as they wait impatiently for the patient train. You push and punch your way in, (you can't do it any other way) and enter. The compartment is so tightly packed that even breathing becomes difficult. If your arm is bent or you are bent at 45 degrees you stay that way. It is no different from a gas chamber and you'll feel like a victim who is going to be gassed. Let me reiterate one such journey that I was a part of some time ago...on my way to an undisclosed location...

Location: Matunga Central Station - After a hard working day, me and Archie decided to take the Mumbai Local to avoid the mad traffic on the roads... The station air was warm and the platform was overwhelmed with people in the midst of clamor, heat, perspiration, and bone-weariness...

The local chugs its way in... and feeds on people... who are trying to get just a foot into one of its various yet overfed mouths... Archie the pro gets in and I just manage enough to get a foot hold of an inch and hang there for life... until the local can digest some of the travelers for me to get in. Phew! An experience in itself! But picture abhi baki hai mere dost!

Well, We managed to squeeze ourselves just to find out that this was a Kurla bound train! Man! What a Mess!!!! We would have to get off in the middle and board another one of these man-made monsters to reach our destination...To cut the long story short we get ourselves into a Kalyan Express only to find ourselves in the midst of some irritating, fart mixed, evaporated sweat filled crowd of women. Archie I can already see your nose twitching! Two ladies standing behind me are pushing and making their way out...two others standing in front are hitting me hard sometimes with their long wavey hair and sometimes with their over sized and overburdened hand bags... and Ouch! someone rushing squelched my leg and Unaware of all this buzz the train is floating on the tracks....with its gentle speed....

We manage to find some breathing space in the gangway... and one inhalation from Archie and the woman in front of her brought the roof down!
Irked Woman - “Aye! Kya kar rahi hai? Sidha khadi nahi ho sakti kya!”
Our very brave Ar'cheeeeeeeta' lost control and gave the woman a piece of her mind... "Kya? Dikhta nahi kya? Peeche se log dhakka de toh mein kya karu?"
The tennis match goes on... from the “Dhakka mat maar” to the “peeche walon ko bolo” to the "pata nahi kya samajhti hais” . Can still picture Archie trying to manage herself and survive herself through this ordeal of some backstabbing (literally) and some weird stink emanating from the lady in front of her, while I tired my best to balance myself on one foot and my bag in one hand - like in the midst of a ballet performance - in my attempt to help a small kid breathe some “air”.

In the midst of all this zig zag zoo, there comes a station and.....hundreds of homegoers gushed inside as if this is the last train of their escape from a lion's den...Ignoring the already pathetic conditions of the ones already inside, they want their space and for the same they are ready to fight with all their might....

We were about to reach our destination only to find our way blocked by the irked lady who kept giving me and Archie her "dirty looks" and her miscoloured eyes didn’t help us in anyway! But as the local hoots itself into the station... it pushed us out like mere well done buttered pop-corns only to swallow another bank of people, who linger on impatiently nearby waiting for their turn to put themselves in the very spaces we filled once.

Archie and me take in a "cleaner" whiff of air... and sighing-ly make our way out of the exhausted chaos in turn loosing out on the chasing grey eyed fiend of a woman. But what comes to my mind in retrospect is that, within this experience of nonsensical confrontation and faceless conflicts, lies a pattern emerging of the millions of people who travel the Mumbai local everyday… chugging towards their goal without knowing how they got there... in their attempt not to miss their Ek Challis ki Last Local.

Angel Watching My Back

I ask for a sign... and I always find an answer!

There is always an explanation, if we are willing to look deeply enough for the answer. It takes courage to want to know the future. It takes courage to accept our own pasts. It takes faith to believe that we are all worthy of divine love and a worthy life....

Life is meant to be understood. Life is not mysterious. There are explanations for everything that happens in our lives. But have you ever felt that you already knew the answer to what you were asking for? Have you ever felt the need to ask "Why me"?

How easily we pass off the divine as "coincidence" or "mistakes" or "unexplained." Sometimes it's hours or days or years before we finally "get it." How many time have you felt the the hair on the back of your neck rising to attention or the sudden chill running down your spine...
You're being contacted every day and every night. But are you watching? Are you listening to that distant yet inner voice that keep calling out to you?

Trust that your guardian angels are guiding you, every step of the way. But who are the angels? What do they do? Are they really those blonde-haired creatures with long, white robes and feathered wings, who hover in the clouds plucking idly at their harp strings? Are they those dear friends who stand by you while in dire straits? Are they your parents who don't ask questions but still stand by you forever without passing any judgments? Are they your kins who sit with you and help you analyze things, who help you make your own decisions? Or are we talking about something different? What do I mean when I want to quote from a song once I had heard a long time a go...

They silently hold me,
With their mighty wings,
When I cry the console me,
With the songs they sing,
When I sleep they watch over me,
Fan away evil things,
These are my angels, over me

Said we don’t even notice,
The protection they give,
Fell as asleep on the road, and yet
I continued to live,
Sometimes I even wished that they
Wouldn’t answer my call,
But unwavering angels,
They just won’t let me fall

It really struck a chord with me... and so I decided to find my angel and give it the right place and space in my life...

Here it is... my angel... watching my back!

... And my outlook on life... being my guide to life... and giving me that strength to believe that no matter what happens to me, good or bad, there will always be something to balance it, and when things do get bad, one, they’ll get better at some point, and two, there is always someone trying to watch my back... being my costant watchdog.... in whatever’s going on... in order to help me make it through it. Always trying to get me to the right spot, at the right time to discover my guides for myself!

Angels - a way of life for me... my story ... my life and my spirit

Windmills of My Mind!

Two months of rapidly passing overcast clouds, shadowed thoughts fly and the blur is welcome.

Introspection? In gallons, flowing into every landscape of the mind, and entering every re-lived and once believed conversations. The face of the man from city of the minar who showed me dreams... and snatched away my right to sleep... and never cared.... never tried ... never bothered to give it back to me...

Days and Nights of moaning sirens, sleepless and speechless nights....then the mornings where all I hear is the wind in the trees, somebody's loud conversation in the middle of nowhere and my mind where stories are waiting to be written.

Tonight just like all the previous nights sleep eludes me - I float from my book to computer to the balcony, watching the ocassional lights of early morning and listening to the hurried yet tired cars zip past.

The night hours stumble into one another as all nights have.... A routine that created itself and now heaves upon me every night. Outside it is nearly always the same; a dull night yawning under the shadows of the day that has past....

Tonight, the reminder that I can hope to leave the weakest links of my life behind me, but... At night, when all is invisible and is the most intimate, the pink curtains on my windows, turn in the darkness, and I can’t distinguish between the two most intimate sounds. One of heartbeat, and the other of the fan blades. In between, my breaths seem to float into oblivion. This sensitivity to everything that moves, but numbness to everything that is.

Being alone, sometimes brings out the darkest sides of me. Not that I fight them. But sometimes, just the fierceness of my own feelings, chokes me.