If I were to think of a single trend that persists in my life, it is that of change when things around you are settling down. Yes yes , I never denied change is bad. Having to accept new situations, people or even a room makes us more accomodating of the immense diversities that life demands from us..sometimes impinges.
So I have grown up moving from a small town to a big city, from being heckled and bullied in my school's playground by the class "leader" to a convent school that let me sprint through its corridors without a care, from love that seemed everything to new love I don't think will ever grow old...from one job to another and so on.
To be honest , I don't mind change. Looking back I know why I can reach out to people so easily and adjust to changes in my surroundings. I haven't quite exactly trampled around my country but I absorbed and apprecaited the ethos of every new place I moved to.
But when friends move, it's difficult. It always has been. The girl in school I shared all my secrets with and with whom summers were spent cycling all aorund town moved away to Bangalore when I was ten. I cried but the crazed routine of school didn't give the me time to grieve for long. Since then I haven't grieved remotely about people moving out of the routine that my life had become.
I am hurrying to finish my sentences. Anxious to meet a friend - one more in the latest list, who will soon leave Mumbai. And well there aren't any tears as of now. The last two months have been the closest to what I can call the "best". Summer afternoons spent walking around South Mumbai locating extinct dhobi ghaats or clicking pictures of a synagogue I couldn't have asked to be painted in any other colour- blue..we laughed at ourselves and spoke in silences. Two years back we did the same on Kolkata's streets..gauging our lives in 20 questions. There wasn't too much spent together in the interim. But the last two months..seemed to have made up for two years.
No cliches! No cliches! Thats what I keep in mind when I script my stories, when I interview people, when I create the stuff for people to see on the idiot box. So I'll stop. Perhaps a lot more unsaid but better this way.
I spoke about breaking free last night. I don't know if he will manage it ..perhaps not yet. But perhaps between the both of us I 'll be happier if he gets there first. I''ll just request "The Piano Man " at Toto's everytime I miss him :)
