invisible soul

We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives.
- Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I sat on a bench at Wadala Road Station, trying my very best to hold back those tears, searching for chewing gum in my sack. Anything to keep me occupied. A lady spoke near me, she was asking if the ladies compartment would halt near there. I looked up, and her shocked expression has been burnt in my mind. I answered her, and went back to searching. All I could concentrate was on telling myself to keep breathing.

In this city of Mumbai, there is great comfort in anonymity. Every new member who comes from elsewhere in the country, is embraced and feels the power of this throbbing heart. But sometimes its so difficult to get a few minutes away from the melee. Its like being watched, constantly. Suffocatingly close faces and arms and hair. The assault on the senses of clean soapy smell, music on loud speaker, suburban woes and victories - all in a short space of an hour is sometimes more than the spirit can bear.

I walk home from the station on days like these. Just the twenty minutes before another world comes hurling at me, and hits me between the eyes. Home. The walk home, in the cool evening breeze is better than any other picker-upper. Ofcourse unless someone actually picks you up. Its the time when I just walk, music buzzing in my ears, a zillion thoughts flying out before I grasp anything at all.

And sometimes I feel like shrinking into nothingness myself. When I saw a girl wipe away a tear once from her swollen eyes. When I saw kids from municipal schools hawking notebooks after school hours on the train. When the flyover sidewalk was interspersed with old people sleeping on the benches or when the fledgling who had fallen out of nowhere stilled its flapping, forever.