in my life

Approximately 2000 kms away from the shiny, happy people of Bombay I have a little vault. In which rests the collected paraphernalia of a now hazy life. The vault lies patiently in wait. For me to come by occasionally and turn the contents over, slowly and meticulously. Like a collector of fine china, taking in each piece to quietly marvel at it and yet be terribly careful not to chip it. It is where I stumble upon faded smiles, doodled notepads, dog-eared comic books and smudged photographs of happy dogs, all of who are probably in heaven now.

Even before I landed here, I had decided to walk the city. To plod heavy on the grey pavements that have nourished thousands of the starving souls that needless youth over the world seem to acquire at some point before adulthood. To give in to the unique sights and smells of every serpentine lane that vein across the grimy, sweat-stained heart of the metropolis. Hence, armed with a heavy sense of motivation (and brand new saintly-white Adidas shoes) I started walking. And with each dusty step, I found a little note. Left behind by a younger, former me.

I found the little cafe that we could never walk into fearing it to be expensive. The shuffling old ushers, bent with consumption, at the local cinema, now as derelict and run-down as its light bearers. Our bumpy (and very dangerous) pitch at the cricket field which the kids from the other neighbourhood never dared to step on. The corner newsstand where we flipped through trembling girlie magazines. The dusky, winter evenings spent on park benches huddling and coughing as we struggled with perfecting smoke rings. The window that became the cynosure of our lives because of the unseen, pretty girl who lived behind it.

In varying degrees of intensity they came back. The bits and pieces. Broken and in parts. Shrapnels of memory that are impossible to remove surgically. Lodged deep inside, destined to cause pain for as long as I live.