40 days

For the last 40 days, I have been breathing deeper, more effortlessly. I let things surprise me, entertain me, shock me, anger me, make me laugh. I say things when I want to, wording them the way they occur to me. I laugh openly, endlessly, till the laughter runs its course. I let the rain soak me, and I let my feet run. I step into puddles when I want to, I pirouette around them when I don't. I jostle, and let myself be jostled. I allow myself to mutter rude things when I want to, I let myself gush when I want to. When there's something I'd like someone to know, I tell them. I don't shy away from compliments. I feel fully scared when I am scared, I feel fully awestruck when I am awed, I let myself be caught off-guard, I let myself be taken unawares, I allow myself more wide-eyed wonder than I ever have. I try whatever I want to try, I explore whatever calls out to me. I stick my head out of car windows, I lean out of moving trains. I throw my arms open for hugs to the Sea-Link, the expressways, the skywalks. I hurt like crazy when I am hurt; I sing like a lunatic when I want to sing...and I feel so happy when I am happy that I have to make a physical effort to keep my heart from exploding. In the last 40 days, I have become inexplicably...free.

I build my own castles in the air. I live in my own la-la land. I wake up with a new bright idea every day. I have begun to allow myself to feel more sorry for myself at not finding a window seat, than I do when a presentation bombs. I adopt and discard a hundred musings at will. I think about everything, and about nothing at all. I have stopped caring whether I am in line with the rest of the world - and I never really cared whether they were in line with me - so basically, I don't care at all. When the world rushes by me at the doors of a local, and all I want to do is smile into the breeze and the rain, I don't remind myself of the crowd around any longer. When I want to hold my hand out to the breakers at Marine Drive, I no longer feel the need to check if anyone's looking. When I find something adorable or hilarious, I chuckle. I let my mirth laugh itself out to its heart's content.

I am no longer afraid to love - not afraid to think about it, not afraid to talk about it, not afraid to express it. I no longer believe that drawing lines and staying guarded will protect me. I let myself love, I let myself go crazy about things, I form attachments without thinking twice. I love so much it hurts - and then I love some more. I'm not afraid to have my heart broken, I am not afraid of the effort it will take to put it back together. I am not afraid to dream. I am no longer unsure of how I will pick up broken pieces. I am no longer afraid of their entirety when they come true. I live in the moment - I know no other way any more.

I talk before thinking. I think a lot, and sometimes not at all. I do exactly as I please. I do ludicrous, ridiculous things. I take leaps of faith all the time. I draw up bucket lists every second minute, and then diligently go about ticking things off. I have begun to live like there is no tomorrow, I have begun to believe, and I am not afraid to be happy. Oh, I cry too - it's not like I don't. I cry like a baby. I let myself go. I let go. I've begun to discard baggage, I've begun to travel extra-light. I let bright lights blind me, I let colours fill up my peripheral vision, I let sounds travel directly to my senses. I filter nothing. I let it all in, raw, unprocessed, and I let myself be coloured happy. I feel.

My thresholds have become lower - so low, in fact, that they don't exist anymore. I used to have walls - they've vanished from under my nose. I have no idea what became of them, and I don't care. I'm raw, defenceless, vulnerable now.

I have never felt stronger, richer or happier.

I have never felt so much. I have never lived so much. I'm in love with the city. I have never been so free.

Set Free

I'm told I may as well enjoy the rush while it lasts. The fatigue, the long hours and the madness - I'm told it gets to you after some time. If it does, this is the first place I'll say it...but till then, it would be criminal not to celebrate the rain, or the exhilaration of footboard travel on a local.

It rains anytime it pleases. Literally. It's brilliant. Sometimes, the sky darkens and it becomes perceptibly cooler; then there's a mild shower, which steadily gives way to a glorious downpour. At other times, you're suddenly, casually told by the unmistakable patter of raindrops, or a spattered windshield or windowpane. The rain has a mind of its own, in a city with a mind of its own - a city that becomes a willing character in your story. What more could you possibly ask?

And if you haven't felt the breeze in your face as you perch at the doors of a local thundering through western or suburban Mumbai, you haven't lived. It's liberating beyond belief - and the freshness of it never dies. It's the kind that sets you free, the sort that obligingly hands you bricks for your own little castle in the air.

More, later.

The First Rush

He braked, even though she hadn't hailed the rick. So she walked up, less than desultory, and asked, "Kurla?"

The rain doesn't let up here. It's a benediction, a blind, a dogged, overconfident presence, a mug of black coffee, a pinch of opium. The lights, they never fully die either. The daylight fades slowly, languorously. The streetlights never sleep. It's a seamless handing over of wakefulness, a faceless but purposeful series of movements - like a heart beating quietly, rhythmically. The light follows its own rhythm, as does the rain, the drops beating a little tattoo on awnings, windowsills and umbrellas.

"Yes", he replied. She got in, remembered that she had missed a crucial question, realised that it might be too late already, but decided to ask it anyway.

"Meter se chaloge?"

The city recorded its highest June rainfall in a decade last Monday. Nothing moved. Anything that did quoted astronomical prices in exchange. Some might even say it was the city's way to equilibrium. Life otherwise comes packaged in a split bun here, with chutney and fried, salted green chillies if you feel like it, all for ten bucks. Life calls out to you from under brightly-painted facades and from makeshift stalls, where it sizzles on a hot tawa in a cloud of smoke. The smoke is aromatic and smells of cumin and mustard and bay leaves and curry leaves and garlic. The smoke mingles with the rain, and they beat a tattoo together on your umbrella. Plop, plop, plop-plop-plop, plop.

"Bilkul". And then she looked up in surprise. Two syllables, and no hauteur, no hurt pride, no resignation, no businesslike briskness. Just an answer to a question. A simple, confident answer to a regular, hurried, part-suspicious question.

It is mostly the shoes which bear the brunt of the weather. The colour is the first to fade, relenting slowly, unwillingly, bravely to the assault by muddy water. Shoes that have served long and well, and deserve the dignity of the shelf - shoes whose long history of faithfulness keeps them from acquiring said dignity. Nobody ever stops to think this, but the shoes and the rain are intimately related. The shoes make the rain manageable, even fun. Splash. Plop-plop. Splash.

It is nearly ten. Kurla is still lit up like a Christmas tree. Smoky smells of frying green chillies and splitting mustard hang from doorways and in shop windows. Shiny garments embellished with sequins are still hung up, like tinsel on the Christmas tree. Bikes, cars, bicycles, pushcarts. A fluorescence that has settled comfortably into nooks and crannies. A day being wrapped up, like this morning's newspaper. Another night slipping effortlessly into the split bun. Chutney, anyone?

Curiosity tumbles out even as the currency is being counted for the 28-buck ride. This is a terrible hassle, this counting currency in fickle light. Everything should be pigeonholed into Smartcards and coupons - like train rides are. Train rides on the Central Line, or the Western, near the doors - are they points of entry? Exit? - with the breeze and the rain blowing past madly. Breeze chasing rain, rain chasing breeze - hard to tell which. They chase each other into her hair, over her eyelids, into the crook of her elbow and the nape of her neck. Buildings blur themselves obediently. Foliage follows. And the train rushes over the tracks. Rhythmically, purposefully. Clackety-clack. A four-stage crescendo, followed by a subdued double thud. Tek-tek-tek-tack. Four-minute nirvana in faded shoes that have learned the curves of the soles of her feet, with the rain and the breeze and the blur and the dependable, consistent rhythm of 400 tonnes of steel on weather-beaten iron.

So she glared Curiosity back into its place, asking him at the same time as she handed him a 50-rupee note, "Do you live here? Why did you agree to bring me here at this time of day - don't you have to return the rick to the owner of the fleet?"

The rain and the breeze play games elsewhere too. Marine Lines, for instance, where, during high tide, the waves build themselves a trampoline. She saw that today. For all its madness, the rain is the meeker cousin of the sea. Brash and brazen, the sea built itself up and came boldly forward with a swagger- stay if you dare, or run! - and crashed on the breakers, drenching her from head to toe. Taken - every which way -  by surprise, she took a while to breathe again, and when she did, she tasted salt on her lips. Raw, unbroken salt. Between the rain and the sea, she melted, dissolved and came together again. Washed, scrubbed clean, with salt on her lips and her skin. Touched by the elements in the bold, intimate, no-permission-needed-none-asked manner of a lover.

"Ladies first", he said. "I live in BKC", and he handed her twenty bucks in change. "I was done for the day and going home, but then I saw you waiting for the bus. You were alone, and it is almost ten. Here, you forgot two rupees."