My life changed the moment I decided to leave my cushy, protected, box of a life in Bahrain behind and move to Bombay.
I had completed 12th grade and now I needed the right college to embrace me for the next three years. I zeroed in on one and said, “This is where I will study. Nowhere else.” Less rote learning, more projects – activities, activities, activities. It was the right fit.
I got accepted and moved into the hostel on the university campus. I had no experience or training in the art of living on my own or sharing a room with strangers. In the first year, my roommate was a tall, eccentric girl with a wide, toothy grin. That first year I got comfortable with being uncomfortable. I learned what ‘culture shock’ meant. I saw what panic attacks looked like. I experienced ragging as an onlooker in tears.
I became friends with the above-mentioned eccentric girl. I became friends with the eccentric person I was. We ignored the dust collecting in the corners of our rooms because we were too busy having fun to clean. We broke hostel rules for the sheer thrill of rule-breaking. We found comfort in community and food. Late night instant noodles and garma-garam coffee.
We fell in and out of love with boys, girls, and the movie stars who came to the campus on weekends to shoot. We told each other grand tales of romance and breakups. We waded through waist-high rain water just because we could. We watched movies at Gaiety Galaxy, Bandra on weekends and completed our assignments together on the floor of our rooms with music and munchies, way past midnight.
We went through phases of inspired fitness goals and went for early morning walks on the magical shores of Juhu Beach. The sand told us stories of a million heartbeats and the waves sang odes to the dreams keeping afloat in this city. A lone violinist played his violin on the beach on those days, facing the sea, earnestly speaking in a language he knew the waves would understand.
How could I not fall in love with Mumbai amidst all this?
The city taught me to pay attention to stories. It taught me to question narratives and strongly held beliefs. I saw my former opinions crumble to the floor in the face of curiosity and acceptance.
I also felt like an outsider struggling to find a foothold in this big bustling, pulsating city that held my heart in its gullies and by lanes. The city took its time but it started to accept me. I became privy to its stories, joys, and tears. Its madness echoed my own. I became welded to its rib cage, so close to its beating heart. I let the sound of that beating heart merge with my heartbeats for well over two decades.
The things that you love can also be what repulses you.
I bid farewell to Mumbai last year, disrobing myself from its embrace. An embrace so strong that it had started to feel like a stranglehold.
It was not Mumbai that had changed.
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I wrote this during ‘The Rhythm of our Stories’ - a creative writing workshop by ’s , facilitated by and . The workshop transformed the written piece by giving it a voice and a listening audience. It is one thing to write your story. It is an entirely different thing to hear it in your voice, as you read it out, in the safe and loving space of Ochre Sky. Register for their February workshop and experience this magic yourself.
Want to hear it in your voice too, Sumira <3. WHat a lovely ode to my Bombay!
Maza aa gaya! especially with the pictures this time :)