November Rain...

November is no different from other months. Not if you are in Mumbai. In this city of constant flux, there are two things that don't change much. One of them is the temperature; the other is its people. Anytime of the year, you'd never feel cold. Everywhere you go, you'd never escape the crowds. Mobs in motion, gallivanting for some esoteric reason. In Mumbai’s multitudinous abundance, it is solitude that is scarce while loneliness is aplenty.

For this seclusion, he travelled for hours from somewhere in Andheri to the Gateway of India. Having gone through the crushing rush of the local, and having evaded the importunate sellers on the way down from Flora Fountain to the Gateway, it was salvation for him when he finally faced the sea. And though it is always crowded, but the transition from the deflating squeeze of the local to the limitless illusion of space at the seaside is liberation in itself. To run from yourself, you need a lot of space; for the self has a strange knack of catching up with itself.

Leaning on the half wall that runs along the promenade in front of the Taj Palace, he would spend hours staring at the sea. Empty eyes looking into the emptiness of the skies, reflections in a sea of nothingness. Everything here moves with its own volition and somehow that rarity called leisure, makes its way inside the minds of people who pass by. Perhaps this is Bombay's only visible pause.

Time though slow, would pass by unnoticed. At half past eight a red Chevy would stop below the porch of the Taj. Before coming to halt, it will honk its horn three times, one long and two short bursts. This would be the time when he'll turn around and look at the opening door. Then she would get down. The Arabian Sea would get lost in the roaring waves inside his mind. And while she, in uniformed grace would disappear behind the high glass doors, he would watch stealing the last of her glances. Interstitial sightings through the gaps between the viscous traffic.

He had seen her on his very first visit to the Gateway. Standing at the monument of time, he found his own time coming to a sudden halt. Her sight was enough to steal speech and freeze words into silence. Something like Rushdie's Neela walking on the roads in flesh and blood. Only that no-one else seemed to see her the way he did. So no cars swerved onto the pavements, no walking-people bumped into the pillars, no bikes screeched to a halt and no painters painted the wrong walls red. Everything remained the same, but something in him changed.

He'd wait patiently everyday, for her to come out. Time would pass. The number of people at the gateway and the promenade will go down. Slow at first and faster later, leaving the cobbled floor beneath the gateway a lone collage of debris. And in a while the cleaners will come with long handled brooms and battered dustpans. But she would not. And then he'll give up, for in a while the last train will pull itself off from the Churchgate station carrying the last of the Mumbaikars.

He'll bear time by writing. Sitting on the sea-wall, with a sheaf of papers in his hands, he would see her face in the smudge of inky horizon and write of the color of her eyes that he has never seen, of the fragrance of her hair that he has never felt, the smoothness of her skin that he has not touched. He will write about the dreams that they'd dream together, and the nights that will have no mornings. And after every few lines, he'd raise his eyes just to see if she has, by chance come.

Everyday he will muster courage to go up the door and ask about her. Perhaps, her name. Something, anything that could bring him closer to her, even if in spirit. But then his thoughts would lose their way, his mind would draw a blank, and the only noise that would paint the background of his thumping heart would be white.

Thus many days will pass. The bundle of papers tied up by a string would grow thicker. But his knees would remain weak, his tongue still stiff. So he would wait, and watch, and wait again. In the meanwhile, within his mind he'll soar. Painting the graying skies with the vermillion of the setting sun, he would adorn the night with the scintillating twinkle of her eyes. He would wait, just for her. And then with the last of the ferries coming back, and the crowds coming out of the last show at Regal, he would trudge along the Victorian streets to catch the last train home.

But one day the car would come without her. He would not write anything that day, all through the night he will watch every car that would stop and everyone that would walk in. That night he would run towards the station, clutching his unsaid words in his hands. He would watch haplessly at the train pulling off. That night he would see the lone gateway as someone who shared his loneliness. There will be no sleep in his eyes and only the first train in the morning will take him home, a few hours before he sets off again to work, and then to wait for her.

That evening again she won’t turn up. This will go on for days and slowly his time of waiting will attenuate to the last of the trains. And then one day, 11 days from her absence, somehow the courage that always lost its way among the crowd would find its way to him. He would walk to the giant glass doors. The doorman there will look at him, once and then twice. But this night he won't flinch. He would ask about the girl who came everyday at half past eight, and the guard will tell him that she got married last week. Suddenly his world would grow dark, even as a car pulling up in the portico would shine its high beam onto his eyes.

And then he would walk towards the sea to throw the silent sheaf onto the choppy waters of the high tide. Sapped of all his energy, he would rest against the same stone wall. This time he will sit on the road, waiting for the night to end. From Café Mondegars, a group of young boys would come out ambling towards the sea, one of them singing November Rain. He would smile as AXL Rose would croon:

So if you take the time
To lay it on the line
I can rest my head
Just knowing that you were mine...
All mine.

The saltwater would devour the ink off his pages. That night again he’d be late but there'll be no hurry.

When time loses its meaning, how late is belated?

Note: Perhaps this is the last post for this year. Sometimes I think about this extraordinary thing; taking so much time to write these ordinary stories, and then waiting for you all to read. But then that is where these stories originate, from you who give these words their form. I have tried to be more regular but the flux in life has always unsteadied my resolves.

Wish you all a Happy New Year! and a belated Merry Christmas. I hope for you, time never loses its meaning. Salut!

Thursday, Dec 28, 2006.