Mumbai….the very name paints a picture full of crowd, chaos, dirt, confusion, commotion, stench…urghh…I felt like turning my back and running away when I had stepped out of the Chhatrapati Shivaji airport into the Mumbaiii street for the first time last June…I had hated this place to the core of my heart….and was very persistent on my justifications of the same… every moment kept reminding me of the sweet memories of the place I where I spent amazing three years of my life with the most amazing people…When my friends used to chant the great old phrase ‘Time is a big healer’ I used to mutter ‘Do you have the slightest clue what I have been going through??’ And it continued with me crying out my heart on my pillow every night and praying desperately every morning that things would somehow turn out to be the way I wanted them to be…I had developed dark circles, and my hair had graying alarmingly…and falling too…I had lost all interest in everything around me…my classmates, classes, my hostel mates…I was probably stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time...
The sea appeared the most revolting thing here…I was sick of the dirty grey gloomy ocean…It seemed to be mocking at me and threatening me to pull away the remaining signs of sanity and my urge to be happy again…The black waters at night whispered things I dreaded the most… I was scared of changes…People and places and things changing around me…and wanting me to do the same…pulling away my priceless possessions…I didn’t want to...I was not ready to come out of the dreamy world I had painted on my own and believed so ardently that what I wished would be true…
But surely with substantial time and good friends, the deepest wounds heal…maybe not completely…the scars do remain…and so I believe I am healing…I love my friends here…have started going out…exploring places…relishing good food…And after all this I have realized that there are people who love me for what I am…I have started doing things that I love to do…sketching, painting, reading, writing…and among all this…I have found a new love….running….along the waters….Strange it may sound…but I love running along the sea as much as I used to hate it when I came here….
Every morning before sunrise…I feel an urgency to be there…there’s a strange need…to feel that moment and witness that magnificence of the great blue water body…the only sound that soothes me apart from my heartbeat is the sound of the waves leaping at my feet…the cold chilly breeze caresses me and carries me to a state of bliss when I run against it…it rubs against my face harshly...bringing tears to my eyes.…my nose becomes cold…but the savoir faire wants me to be the spectator during the entire performance...the blissful memory remains with me the entire day…and makes me wait restlessly for the next morning.....those two hours are the most soothing time when I get to spend time with myself…The sea swallows all my pains...and makes me feel the presence and the power of The Almighty...
The change of color schemes mesmerizes me…changing from gray pink to slight strokes of violent orange…nothing more breathtaking like it…as the sun rises…it seems as if some ones slowly pouring the blue color into the ocean…the endless blue shimmer stretches far into the oblivion...makes me feel blessed...
The happy people around…kids running here and there…there’s so much to see and know rather than brooding over the past…the sea seems to be hinting me this…all looks like an enchantment…a magic spell maybe…like it will vanish with a swish of a wand…then the sun comes up…with the moon’s last struggle for survival…competing opposite each other….and I am completely spellbound by the grandeur of nature…The majestic mild yet foaming Arabian at the sunrise is my newfound love….
