Memoirs of a sleepless city- 1

It was a winter night in Bombay. I lay in the bed, drifting in and out of a reverie. It was my third night in the city. The first two days had been really frenzied…running around with all my stuff, from one end of the city to the other. Finally I had ‘settled in’ at Kaustav’s place…for a week.

The orange neon light, from the street outside, streamed in through the blemished glass casement. The midnight radio hummed away softly, somewhere in the next room. Other sounds included the soft drone of Sandip’s snoozing, the street dog’s incessant howl, and the occasional cars whooshing past…..They say the city never sleeps…..Well at least I wasn’t….

The development of events, in the past two weeks had been really rapid. One leading to another, without giving much time to contemplate. I have been mulling up the idea to come to Bombay for a very long time…so, when I was asked to give my choice for the place of posting, I never thought twice while selecting Bombay. In another week, my training in Calcutta ended. Soon, I was, standing in the long queue, at the Sealdah station, to buy my ticket for Gwaneshwari Express to Bombay. And, in three days, I was standing in front of my house; my suitcase chock-a-block with my clothes, books, and shoes. My handbag crammed to limit, with packets of biscuits and wafers, and my wallet…..well, the status of that was quite unlike the other two. As I waited for the cab to arrive, I watched the Kadam tree, tall and upright, with its bare branches, drooping into our balcony, the long-standing rickety wooden trolley, right under the tree, where the Istiriwala used to press clothes day n night, I watched Ma’s cotton saree, fluttering in the wind, left for drying up in our balcony, and everything else, that had become so familiar, that I had never cared to take a second look at them. But at that moment, as the cab pulled up, my eyes drank up every sight and sound that was around me.

Yes, I was stepping out of home, stepping out for good. Going to a city that attracted me like a forbidden craving… to the city that never sleeps.