A Puzzle

In my trip to the enigmatic city of Mumbai I had decided to utilize my time, every minute of it. Usually whenever I go there, I visit a million of my relatives who stay there and whole time goes in traveling from one relative’s home to the another’s ( as one would stay in Dadar n other in Belapur). And I hated all that. Really hated it as I don’t like crowded places and Mumbai is CROWDED. I believe that for India, the word Cosmopolitan originated from the city of Mumbai. What do you think? Am I right or am I right? Hee hee hee…
I went to my mama’s place in west Santa Cruz by bus. I don’t know why that area is so hyped about. It’s OK. Not great or something. My Mami obviously had prepared awesome food. Hogged n then took a nap. In the evening we went to Juhu beach. They have cleaned it!!!!!!!!!!! That’s good news for beach lovers like me. We had gola and such other ‘unhygienic’ stuff which is not much appreciated back home. Sound of waves… I can listen to that heavenly sound for hours and hours. Sadly it was being contaminated with at least 2000 people talking at the same time and in various pitches! Then we went to a micro mini movie theatre called Gem. Watched a real good movie called ‘Flags of our fathers’ directed by Clint Eastwood.
The second day is what I want to talk about. I am SCARED of local trains. My mama insisted on us going by train to VT. I ‘bravely’ agreed! We went to Santa Cruz station. All Mumbai stations look alike. They typically have this bridge over which a million people RUN every day, some people try to sell some cheap stuff like pirated C.Ds , trousers for 30 rupees (!!! Yes. You get to hear such things only in Mumbai!) Etc. And to tell you, they earn very well. You buy ticket here and catch the train at the other end of the world. They have those many platforms. Uncountable locals running following time table sec by sec. I prayed hard. God is sweet. There wasn’t much rush for our train.
We then went to Jahangeer Art gallery. It was my dream to see it, to tell you the truth. I have a belief that probably best of best paintings from India are displayed there. Before that we saw this incredible thing on the foot path. That place is allotted to some artists. They display their work there, on the foot path. Some of the paintings were really good. Every artist has a soft corner for some element e.g. water, villages, scenes from club houses or for that matter a color! And you would see that reflecting in each of his paintings. Then at Jahangeer we saw this exhibition of modern art. It was good and I understood most of the paintings! You have to agree with me that it’s a tough job. There was another exhibition of modern art which I did NOT understand so, it wasn’t all that good! Hee hee hee…
There was one with the theme of Buddha by an artist called Satish Pandey which was really fantastic!! He had made a huge statue of Lord Buddha in bronze. I could really feel some vibrations out there… felt so calm looking at that tranquil face of Buddha. And in a sec all the things that I saw that morning flashed in front of my eyes. All that rush, thousands of middle class people running, carrying there small worlds around, my Mama’s Big flat in a posh locality, story of one of my far off relative who’s daughter is completely spoilt and spends at least 3000 rupees when she goes for shopping every wk, those faceless artists, and that tranquil Buddha! I could feel my heart burn. Was this the reason why I did not like to come to Mumbai? The severity of that ever growing paradox is too much for me to take. Even today as I think of Mumbai, after a while my brain goes numb. No doubt I had a fantastic trip n visited lots of places after my visit to the Jahangeer but the puzzle of Buddha’s tranquility in the middle of that paradoxical world will always trouble me.