Sunday, June 08, 2008

Small Pleasures of Life

3rd June was one of the hottest days in Mumbai and it was the 2nd day at work for me. And I had to walk a good 1.5 km in the afternoon sun to collect the data card for my office laptop from Tata Comm's main office. After a long day at work, I left office @ 7:15. I was just hoping that the last A/c BEST bus to my place would have some seats and as luck would have it, didn't get a seat. Stood for a good 45 minutes before I got a seat at a stop that was a km before my stop. Mumbai has become too crowded these days. People don't spare the A/c buses too. An A/c bus with a capacity of 30 people carries 45 people. What on earth is the government doing? May be this is our CM's way of transforming Mumbai to Singapore. That's a tired Mumbaiite cribbing about the city's crumbling infrastructure in the wake of the crowd. Anyway coming back to the saga of my travel in an A/c bus, I sulked into my seat with glee even though it was supposed to be only for a couple of stops. I could feel the relief in my strained knees as I stretched them and I slowly settled down to 2-minute nap. Trust me, these 2-minute naps make give a feeling of seventh heaven especially on working days.

Out of nowhere, the clouds opened up and Mumbaiites were greeted by a huge downpour. Overwhelmed by the fresh smell of mud (well i simply love the first rains), I just got down 2 stops before my scheduled bus-stop. The moment I stepped out of the bus, I was greeted by the fresh rain-drops and I was overwhelmed at nature. The child in me sprung to life and I just spread my arms in "Titanic" fashion and looked at the sky for a good 2 minutes before makin my way back home. Onlookers threw weird looks at me for my "childish" act. But "who cared"?.

As I was trudging back home completely drenched, with a huge smile on my face, I spotted several such "grown-up children" just enjoying the small pleasure of Mumbai's first rains. Sometimes, it makes me wonder how we miss out on enjoying the small things in life and miss out on some really dear memories. Sometimes it makes me wonder how mechanical we've become to succeed in meeting our needs that the child in us just goes off to a long sleep


Signing Off.....