She walked past the houses with gay abandance. It was a cold day for summer. But she was now more prepared to brave the cold. However, she chose a porch outside the bookstore, where the sun rays hit her directly. She liked the warmth.
She read through the pages that talked of her city. She looked up from the book. Her city! Was the sight she was seeing a part of her city, or was the city described in the book her city?
She didn't know. She thought, both were her cities. And like they say, "She was a part of all that she had met". She was a part of both the cities.
As always, the inevitable comparisons. A solid infrastructure where bikelanes were separately carved out. That versus a place where cars didn't have space on 2 lane roads because of the people occupying it, righteously.
There were a million things she thought. She doesn't like reading some books. They unnecessarily disturb her. She was happy thinking about the fact tht they liked her at work, and that she would spend a couple of years at that company - an experience tht would give her a lot of insight.
But somehow, all those plans seem to crumble cascadingly. All it took was a book and some vivid imagery of the author to make her yearn to 'do something'. But that's where it always stopped. She didn't know what to do! And THAT was partly the reason she wanted to stay back. At least she would be preoccupied learning some new technlogy and doing whatever Web 2.0 meant!
But then...
She read some lines in the book further. Something that said something to the effect of "sometimes, by attempting to improve something, we end up worsening it".
She knew exactly what she meant.
How??
Because she had read another book that had that same 'worsening' as its theme.
She gives up all these thoughts. And walks back home... with the same gay abandance. She sings a song.
She looks around at this city. The sky is light blue... there is greenery everywhere... if ther eis no place for a big tree, there are shrubs, and if there is no place for shrubs, there are small patches of grass. the streets are so clean that the beggar at Dadar station would find it a luxury to make them his home. The cars don't honk, the streetlights work with a deadly precision. The waitresses smile and ask her how her day was. Even the random guy on the street looks and smiles. Genuinely. She sees mountains. She sees her house - 815 Bath Street. Behind it are mountains, and the greenery. It is one of those houses whose postcards she had seen, and those which she had attempted drawing in her drawing classes (but she always drew bullock carts with beautiful houses).
It was one of those times when she had 'stood and stared'!
Stared at all the beauty... or all the 'beauty'.
Yet it was not romantic. It was the beauty of an actress who had taken such good care of herself that she got lost amidst other actresses who took similar meticulous care for their beauty. None stood out, all spotlessly and perfectly pretty.
Romance, for her, was in the train journeys at night, shared with the gajra lady whose children ran around in the train... in gay abandance... where the chhaka gang teamed up and laughed, in oblivion to the fleeting glances of other well-dressed ladies... where everyone was lost in their own world, and yet united by journey... where Gujarati ladies talked boisterously, where south indian ladies talked of their work and sarees, where the college going chics smsed with an alarming dexterity... where she saw the face of an angelic kid being carried around protectively by his elder sister.... why can't she forget that face? It always comes to her in the strangest of situations... that cherubic beauty...
THAT was romantic.
Perhaps that happens to all foreigners... to all those who leave their homes to find another... they are sometimes agonized... and then when they return, they miss their new homes.
Perhaps... she should not stand and stare for too long.
:)
