"To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin, that makes calamity of so long life."

- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; 1885




Monday, March 21, 2011

Chance encounter with a lost love.

In one deep breath, I take you in.

Hello, Bombay. It has been three long years, and I have missed you.

As I stand here, on the 23rd floor of the Taj, Lands End, at midnight, looking upon your brightly adorned Bandra-Worli Sea Link, tearing through the heart of your sea, I muse to myself. This is not how we were acquainted: you and I. And this is not where I had imagined I would ever be looking at you from: an Ivory Tower. I was always the girl of your streets.

You were always the Bombay of the brackish sea breeze, of elbowing through the locals, of knee deep rains, for me. Never a city of a plush hotel room where I spent the past half an hour soaking myself in a bubble bath; nor of 14 hour long meetings bargaining over mega-million deals and certainly not of 10 minute cab rides from Bandra to Worli.

You have changed, and so have I, Old Love. I did not mean to be here today, but I was ordered out of Delhi and into your yearning embrace, at the behest of a beseeching client. I know better. It was you that sent for me. Back here, knowing you like I never knew you before, I long to be yours again. You are my one night stand tonight. Tomorrow I go back to Delhi, to the mundane humdrum of groundhog days.

But for tonight, our spirit is one.