My Blue Speck

Before you proceed to read this, I must warn you, that reading this post might literally leave you breathless. However, for your own good, you must fight the urge and continue to breathe, just as you always have…

Every morning on my way to work, I notice an army of sweepers busy pushing aside all the layers of dust on the roads. Go to any developed country, dust is something they seem to have almost eradicated. In India though dust is an industry employing several millions in the form the sweepers, baai’s etc. They keep sweeping our streets and our homes to rid of us this dust, which in all probability is the same dust that was forced to reluctantly just leave yesterday. Why can’t we seem to get rid of this darn dust! It just seems to be all over the place, all the time!

Now I’d already warned all of you, so brace yourselves. I read somewhere a little while ago, that of the several things that comprise household dust, some very interesting ingredients are human / animal skin, cells, and hair. I’m not sure where I read this, butI did find a reference of the same here.

So, the air that you’ve been breathing all your life; the air that has miraculously been transporting oxygen to your lungs; air, which is around 25-50% dust, also forces you to breathe in tiny little particles of decayed, defunct, fallen off skin, cells and hair from all over the place.

Now that we know what constitutes our dust, and while our faces turn blue from not wanting to breathe it in anymore, ponder upon this. India is one of the most populated countries of the world and the honour of packing most of that population in minimum amount of space goes to Mumbai. So I think more population equals a more dusty environment.

As the name would suggest, a footpath is a path for people who are brave enough to commute by foot. While driving to work via the Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, known more popularly as LBS Marg, I see this narrow strip of unused road on both sides. Riddled with garbage, sewage, hawkers, human beings and a number of other animals in deep slumber.

Most of the roads in Mumbai’s suburbs have 3 lanes to each side. One lane is dedicated to the brave truckers of our country without whom we would be left in the Stone Age. After all, when they’re tired, they need to park their mammoth vehicles somewhere, don’t they? Then when it’s raining, due to the lack of the “footpaths” people tend to descend upon the road and take up lane number two. Now that leaves the vehicles, 80% of which comprise of Auto-Rickshaws, with just one measly little, pot-hole ridden lane. Is it still surprising then that it takes me almost 30 minutes to cover less than 6 kilometers?

Another interesting phenomenon is that you would see many people walking on the road despite there being a nice, clear and dry footpath. Those people are mostly in disbelief. And believe it or not, on a recent trip to Colombo, Sri Lanka where everything is just beautiful, I too, could be seen walking on the roads. There was a footpath, and it was a good one too, but I had to consciously remind myself to climb onto it again.

It’s not all bad though, go further south towards Mumbai city, known affectionately as “Town”, and you would be pleasantly surprised by the sight of 10 ft wide footpaths. Simply beautiful… Marine Drive, Church gate, Fort, Nariman Point… I can’t help but be reminded of “Saddi Dilli ka CP”. Mumbai has a lot of things, but Mumbai can never have a Connaught Place. Some may say that Delhi can never have beach, but I say wait… If Global Warming has it’s way who knows what’s next….

After months of dwelling over what to write about and when to start, and how and whole lot of question marks, today, I finally venture back into the blogosphere. And as always, re-entry is far from smooth.

It took me over 3 minutes to formulate that first paragraph. 180 long, nerve-wrecking, and very tense seconds! Actually, 3 minutes and a few months… It is tough getting back on the saddle. It is tough picking up from where you left off. It is tough to start all over. Often becuase one has to do it alone. More often, becuase you have to do it alone. Ten months ago, I moved from Delhi to Mumbai. Slowly, as time passed, I realized that I had given up writing. I had given up gymming. I had given up reading, playing the guitar. This didn’t happen consciously. Well, all except the gymming bit . But to be fair, I did try… Perhaps not hard enough… And I always found a zillion to blame it on. Bad Namit !

Many a times we turn our focus to one thing, just that one thing that matters more to us than anything else in the world. And just sometimes, some people, end up getting it. That’s when the sane one’s go “Oh Crap. What next?“

That’s when you realize that the rest of your life had been taking a backseat for the longest time. But, as I realized, it actually never is too late to start, or even start over. I mean, if you actually get what you want, then could there be a better to inspiration to get everything else? It’s a gift. I was blessed with that gift. And I don’t plan to let it go to waste. So watch out world. I’m back. Fortunately, I hadn’t completely given up guitaring, and it won’t take me a lot of time to get back into shape once I start gymming. The writing has already begun, and the reading isn’t too far.

So here we go… It’s time to reboot…

CTRL+ALT+DEL

Yeah, yeah, I know… but good ‘ol DOS used to obey that command and much reluctantly… it used to reboot…