It has been ages
since I wrote to you. A lot has changed since then. A lot. My life has turned
upside down (by that I don’t mean LIFE looks like ГIŁE)
over this period. The year – since February last – has been way, way longer
than what the lying calendar reveals.
At times I feel I
have got over you. Did I miss you because you were you? Or simply because
you were home – and I would’ve missed Kamchatka had I been from there? I keep
telling myself it’s the latter…
Navi Mumbai was
different, you know. She was – is – idyllic. She is polite and warm, often whispering sweet
nothings in my ear till late at night.
This insomniac leviathan
of a city is different. She doesn’t know how to pause for a couple of seconds
on footbridges and look at passing trains. She shoves you away, even asking you ugich kashala?1
But even she has February.
She has a February she does not know of, a February where the fan seems harsh in the wee hours and the sun, harsher
as the clock ticks to noon.
Let me tell you a
story of a teenage boy I saw at the station today. I never saw his face, but I
knew he was trying to woo a friend, probably a classmate – or that was what my
limited knowledge of Marathi told me.2
The girl had her
face towards me. They probably had an argument, and she turned her back on the
two of us. But then, right at that moment, a fast train3 sped past
the platform.
Her temper tried to
fight a valiant battle against the laws of physics that govern the sudden wind you
associate with a speeding train. The reluctant cascade of hair brushed his
senses, probably his irrelevant cheek as well. And then she walked away from
him, every stride authoritative enough to put Cleopatra to shame.
He stood there. I
wished I could see his face. But then, I didn’t need to, for he raised his
hand, almost hypnotically, to touch his cheek with his palm. And he stayed put.
I did not read on
my way to work that day. I didn’t need to, for home beckoned. I left you on the
platform that day, Kolkata, just like I had abandoned you four years ago.
And as non-summer4
tries its best to keep summer away from the city, you somehow find ways to come
back to me, Kolkata – as you did today.
You are far, far away from me, but in this month – the most magical of them all – you come close
enough to hold me, to absorb all the fire pent up this spent, fatigued man, close enough to whisper in my ear to send every
bit of me to the land where time stands still.
Perhaps there is February
somewhere in the ruthless relentlessness of Mumbai as well, refusing to let me age.
_____________________________
1Don't ask. Google instead.
2Marathi is easy: it’s basically Hindi where you need to end every sentence in aahe
or naahi. That almost always works.
3A train that
travels faster than the usual ones but loses relevance by showing up late.
4Mumbai doesn’t
have a winter.
