What kind of world do you want?

What kind of world do you want?Think AnythingLet's start at the startBuild a masterpieceBe careful what you wish forHistory starts now... Should there be people or peoplesMoney, Funny pedestals for Fools who never payRaise your Army - Choose your SteepleDon't be shy, the satellites can look the other way Lose the Earthquakes - Keep the FaultsFill the oceans without the salt

- Five For Fighting


The thought on my mind…quite similar.
As I left the city, a vague sort of unsettling gripped my gut, something very unlike the usual travel anxiety I have. Its gonna take a while untill I am back, weird, I cudnt help but feel I’d miss this place. Maybe not, maybe I was just too lazy for that entire transition untill I’d be a place where I can slumber again without having to spend the day travelling.
I reached the most dreaded place….the airport..I have a knack of makin a fool outta myself at this one place…every single time..every airport I step into…is it my fault?
Anyway…like always…I went in running only to discover I was at the wrong check in counter…and then to discover the right one I was standin at had a terminal prob jus wen it was my turn…until the third time I realised I hadnt screened my baggage…so ya…I FINALLY check in…to reach the security check where I feel terribly awkward with all the suspicious looks…for heavens sake…stop them…if i was actually caryying a bomb I wouldn’t give it away by looking so freaked!!....To top it airports are full of paranoid first time flyers…people who feel a boarding call is the be all and end all of things…and if they dint somehow jostle their way to the plane they’d miss it, little realising that the queque behind (and ahead) is their co-passengers. So I got pushed by one such paranoid woman in bright pink who jostled her way into pushin my poor laptop off the screenin to land, thankfully, in my hands….
Another I fail to figure out, is this, people on airports are constantly on phone calls, presuming, the louder they are the more important they appear, especially while on the coach to the plane, embracing their phones untill enough and more announcements have been made and the cabin crew has (almost) threatened them to switch their phones off.
I boarded the flight…after having exchanged looks with someone who either was or resembled my senior from school…a guy who I met just once, he sat next to me during my 10th standard boards….whoaa…kudos to my memory…I remember his name….my memory is a pain!
I was seated in between an elderly woman and a man perhaps in his forties…the woman extremely interested in where I was headed to in Bombay and the exact pages I would stop to look at while flipping through a magazine. Much to her bewilderment I din’t know where I was headed to, untill I remembered the remote mention of Chembur in my conversation with dad at some point. I turned to her relieved and spurted out the information carefuly, until I get yet another glance of ‘Now you are making it up, and I’ve discovered you aint no resident there’.

I like to sleep through flights…and wake up to a destination..right at landing….and I love take offs…its as thrilling as a roller coaster…infact more…the sense of speed…and that split second of weightlesness …until you soar above…leaving a city behind…the aerial view…at dusk…is the most beautiful you get to see…..twilight…mixed with the little articial lights…making the sky look magical…and everything below…fading into darkness….yet identifiable against the background of the sunset. I marvel at my own ability to recognize buildings from that height…entire areas…bridges…roads….its amazing. It gave me a sense of comfort, a familiarity, an attachment I haven’t felt with a city in a long time, the last time I felt that way was when I crossed the Palace gates at Baroda to leave…forever perhaps…I cudnt hold those tears back…I felt something similar….something close…
A few days,I was at the threshold trying to decide which side my world for the rest of the year will be, today I felt doubtless….happy…about my decisions…looking forward already…to being back…to something which isnt, perhaps will never be ‘home’ but was getting closer and closer to the bare minimum that would make me call a place that.
I was leaving, suddenly I dint feel like, a strange wish, of wanting to turn things back which stayed…making me heavy untill I fell asleep.

I woke up..well in advance of the landing, sleepy..cranky like I am when I wake up without someone familiar around.
A while…tea sipped…magazine flipped through twice and given up at….keeping my eyes off the old woman’s gaze I looked down…from the window….as we circled Mumbai…the darknes…the lights…the high rise buildings…each one of them…siginificant yet lost in the huge sea of their likes…reminding me of the last scene of the movie ‘Babel’…unforgettable…and I could feel it…see it…everything fade into the larger picture..slowly…significantly…I felt small, insignificant…unwelcome…to something so huge…I’ve always been put off by the pretentiousness that forms the staple of this place, of how living in anonymity doesn’t seem to bother people, and how perhaps they are unmindfull of the anonymity that surrounds them all the time, through the distances the city houses.
I’ve secretly desired to live here, to give myself just enough time to taste this feeling, of being no one….to anything…or anyone around…to be one amongst a million others…to make a place for myself…here…in this city of dreams. I can’t get myself to, I can’t seem to want more than I have/ will have. One profound life, in a distinctly familiar world, that recognizes your presence beyond your outwardness, beneath the realm of your thoughts, categorising at times, widening at most,paving a way, throwing things your way, getting you addicted….to life…to yourself…its just the kind of world I want
Very reluctantly to myself, I admit I've found it in the least expected ways, throught these times, there's no place I'd rather be than here.