Life's Onward Journey...

  Yet again, sleep eluded me. Once I was done acknowledging the presence my daily visitors, the thoughts that come and go unabashedly, I remembered the walnut cake lying in the refrigerator.  The detachment that I faked when I left it unfinished must have crushed its hopes. Feeling guilty, I stepped into the kitchen to check on it. But something stopped me on the way. The bright yellowness of a streetlight not so far trickled through the condensate settled on the kitchen window.  "You will have to cry yourself to sleep tonight", I whispered to the walnut cake and crouched on the floor. The canvas of a moisture-laden curtain was ready to be scribbled upon.  A rose bud, a cup of steaming hot coffee, a spool of tangled up thread or just simple chaos... Staring at them fade and disappear, I nudged sleep, which had finally sneaked in and was sitting close to me.  "Shall we go now?"

It's been 17 years. Seventeen years since I walked out of the railway station and embraced you, Mumbai. From that cozy room in the hostel to a tiny house in a far corner of the city. From having just one friend in the city to building some mighty friendships over the years. From being surrounded by those friends, to bidding each one of them goodbye, one by one. While they all moved on, I stayed back. Not by choice, but probably by fate. Thrice I tried to leave you, uprooted myself from here, said my goodbyes, turned back and wept, believing that I would never see you again. "There's still some time before you move on", you seemed to say to me, every single time I stepped away. Like a clingy lover, you pulled me back, hugged me tight, and whispered in my ears, "Not letting you go." Oh Mumbai! I am tired of trying to move away from you. For now, I will just rest my head on your shoulders and doze off a bit. I know you are watching over me, like you have been f