I am an Extroverted Lifelong Learning Tree Hugger

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm an
Extroverted Lifelong Learning Tree Hugger

Friday, October 05, 2007

Mist-i-cism in Mumbai

29 September dawned cold, foggy and sleepy. I watched myself get out of bed and ready for a 3 hour journey to Pune. Work had been a bummer the night before and I couldn't leave by my customary evening bus. Cursing and cribbing, I’d made my way home, resigning myself to a night of restless sleep. When there’s a 6 am bus to catch, I fear not waking up on time.

So anyway, there I was, trudging out, heavy-lidded early in the morning. I actually half-sleep-walked to the bus stand and tumbled into my seat. The weather outside was a bit chilly and the AC bus did little to warm me. The nip in the air was surprising, considering Mumbai’s severe lack of a winter. But it was pleasant. Reminded me of my school days in Delhi’s winter. (Just thinking about them now in the warmth of home chills my bones.) How my brother and I would brave the cruel winter morning and wait at the stop for our ‘3-ton’. All you could see through the thick swirling fog were these two pale-yellow blobs – calling them beams of light would be an insult to Edison.

But I’m digressing. Let me come back to Mumbai. I usually fall asleep even before we’re out of Chembur. For some strange reason, which would get explained later, I could not sleep. I’d had less than 3 hours of shut-eye the previous night and I was as awake as an advertising person the night before the ‘big-client’ pitch.

The mist-erious reason became clear when I reached Chembur. It was like a mini hill station. I couldn’t believe my eyes! The buildings were completely fogged from the 7th floor upwards. Navi Mumbai was even better. The view from the bridge was breathtakingly mind-blowing. All I could see, partly, was the road ahead of us and thick, flowy mist on either side. Fields of soft, puffy cotton.

8 years in Mumbai and I have never seen something like this.

I looked around and saw everyone asleep. This beautiful, quiet moment belonged to me and only me. It was my moment, my special moment. Almost like something I’d been waiting for, something I’d been brought to that early in the morning. I craned my neck for as long as I could, trying to print the image on my mind to carry it with me eternally.

It seemed to last forever. Almost forever. The bus turned the corner at Belapur and all was lost from sight. Taken by the rising sun. Taken to a place where beautiful moments stay, waiting for its chance on earth once again.

When it does, I hope I’ll be there, once again. To see, to feel, to believe.

Mist-i-cism in Mumbai. Rare.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

mist or smog ? sorry, but here;s a sorely practical bloke reading a romanticised blog........ seen it so very often .... negotiating the narrow "safe waters" off Murud, between dense fishing boats and nets and buoys illuminated by tiny lamps that are visible at the very last moment, and then those contacts littered across the Radar .... ships leaving Mumbai and JNPT, OSVs enroute to Bombay High, ...... and the need to maintain high speed to make the "ETA" to Mumbai Naval Dockyard ......... and there covered in a thick cloak of .... u guessed it, SMOG ! it's Mumbai ......after the relatively cooler night, the thick smog marks the city limits of this super-polluting city , a city that good ol' Gore would dread and add in his documentary and the city which declares it's presence by the SMOG aka pollution miles out at sea......... choking our lungs clear from days of fresh Ocean air ........ MIST or SMOG? SMOG-i-Cism of Mumbai, I would rather say

Nitin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nitin said...

Not really, you can find a few more spots such as the one you described - Aarey milk colony being one of them! An early morning BEST bus ride from Goregaon uptil say L&T is enchanting and mesmerizing in almost the same way.... and this one is quite a "naturally" freshening experience too, because you don't have an AC ;) and can even go uptil the extent of being "thrillingly awakening", depending on the bus driver's mood! :D