Letter #10

Dear M,

I terribly miss Bombay tonight. I remember my first night in the city, 

It was July 3 and Bombay was absolutely drenched in its venerable monsoons, and I landed right into it. I left Kolkata sometime at 9 pm. I got up on the bus with a backpack and a tiny trolley, took the seat near the window towards the end of the bus, and waved at my mother. She always comes to see me off, she is very romantic that way. She says, "Well, at least that buys me some time to be with you a little more." 

And off I went. Honestly, I don't remember much about that day but I remember being awfully sad. I simply didn't want to leave but that was a secret I kept to myself. I knew if I told that to my mother or anyone at home, they would keep me at a heartbeat. But I couldn't let that happen either. I felt compelled to go to Bombay. Something inside kept telling me to run to the city even if I didn't have a job, and that I did. 

I remember crying when the plane left Calcutta. I stared at the entire city glistening on a rain-swept night, and as the plane cast itself from the North to the South of the city I imagined my mother standing on the roof looking up. We both like to do that, it's one of the things we do together. And each time one of us leaves, the other always stands on the roof right at the time of departure and for half an hour to make sure that we see the plane go. Very doltish, I know. And truth is, I won't do that for anyone else but her. 

The city fell behind pretty soon and I grabbed on to my copy of Aldous Huxley's 'Time Must Have a Stop'. It was terribly boring but I coaxed myself through it. However, after about 45 minutes when the plane was dark and all passengers were asleep I felt a soft, feather-like thing tickle my neck. I almost leapt but didn't. However, I was terrified. I turned back all prepared to snap at anything that appears but there it was. A tiny hand of a few months old baby clutching the seat cover. I didn't see the baby, nor did I hear him/her, but I just saw its puny fingers all white against the dark seat. 

After a while the fingers let go of the seat and began to poke me again on the neck. I stretched out my finger and kept it close to the hand, and very soon the hand held my finger tightly. And that was it, for the next 20 minutes or so I wept like a baby silently as a baby's hand held on to my finger. 

We landed in Bombay late in the night at 2 and I didn't see the baby. But the city at once distracted me. It didn't welcome me with the long-stretched sea but in the dark I noticed several elevated pieces of lands and a number of high-rises sprouting in between them. And gradually the city appeared. All lit-up, shining, and casting its shadow shamelessly upon the sea. Bombay was at once unapologetic and obtainable. It was threatening but not without a cause. It was dominating but not harmful. Most of all, it was wet but never weak. And the rain swept me right off my feet (literally). 

After waiting in the rain for nearly 25 minutes, I finally managed to book myself a cab and left for Goregaon - my first abode in Bombay. The cab rode through the empty, dirty, clumsy streets of Bombay and I had never felt untethered. I was at once attracted and it was very similar to what I had felt for you one the first day we met. 

That's where Bombay started. On a rain-clad night full of mud and soil, and an enduring sense of an endless adventure.