For me, being in a new place makes me feel high.Every place has millions of stories to tell. Screaming to be heard,lost in silence. Stories of struggle ,of failures and success, of love and hatred, of losing and finding.
Whenever I am in a new place, I can feel the vibrations of all these stories at a very outsider level. Its as if these stories are screaming at my face, but i cant hear them because of my self absorption and ignorance.
This Sunday, after a long week I decide to take my new camera out and go clicking on the streets of Mumbai. I moved to Mumbai a while back. Crazy classes and laziness prevented me from doing this often.
I and my friend decided to go to this place called Kottachiwadi, a small heritage village with 28 houses , situated in a quiet lane in the busy part of South Mumbai, in Girgaon . It has Portuguese style houses. More than 100 years old, this part of the city is a different city altogether.A small Jewish church marks the entry to the lane. As you enter the tiny lane, you will see, beautiful multicolored wooden houses. Tiny garden outside all houses, with small external staircase leading to the top.
Like rest of the country, kids were paling cricket on the lane.The place had a very comforting silence. The voices of the kids echoed in the silence. We bumped into this old lady called Sheeila. She is a dance teacher at a school.Highly energetic in life, she asked us to come to her home. She lives near Kottachiwadi, in a colony called kshatriya colony. On going to their house, we discovered stories of love and music. Everyone was a musician in her house. Her daughter in law, Rakhi was a classical singer.Her son Maanesh sang professionally old hindi songs of Mukesh ,Kishore and Rafi nationally and internationally. Her granddaughter, Pranjal studying in class 12, has starred in a Marathi film and few adds. Rakhi and Maneesh had fallen in love. Like all love stories, there story too had a twist. Rakhi belonged to a Brahmin family.Her parents opposed the wedding.The eloped and got married. They had a turtle as a pet.Her name is Jaaneman. Janneman was gifted to Sheela by her students on her wedding anniversary celebration.
However, like I mentioned every place has millions of story to tell. We could see musics and happiness but at the same time I could fell the dis satisfaction in Rakhi's eyes when she said she could not practice law because of her household duties. I could see how Maneesh hijacked all her conversation and she sat there smiling. I could feel a weird kind of fanaticism in Sheela's faith towards her dainty.
Its not something new, I feel this everywhere. In my own world and outside.No matter where I go.I feel weary of writing about them. They let me in their house. They were extremely warm to me. Asked me to come again. Here I am, analyzing their space.But, its not only about them. its generally about all of us. Everything in day to day becomes a fight, sometimes the fight to live, sometimes just to create your own space in your own domain. Soon you accept it "as a way of life", and all the suppression attains a normalcy. Anyone's struggle is measured by success or failure. But according to me its not about winning or losing. A struggle breaks the normalcy. Even in the failure there is an acknowledgement which would have otherwise passed unnoticed.
While walking out of the colony Sheela made me meet her husband. An old man, suffering from joints pain. He is losing his eyesight. He was lying in his cot under the staircase. It made me uneasy. We greeted him and left.
To end the day, we had delicious paw bhaji across the CST station and went back to our own lives with loads of pictures.
