The rains are here finally and the city is awash with the beauty of natural greens, wet roads, flowing bodies of water, fresh fruit and vegetables, relieved faces peering out of windows and grills with their arms extended to feel the rain drops on their palms and soaking in the fresh smell of wet mud … Nu and I plan to go for a walk and have pakodas and hot chai this evening… I usually try to look at everything positively but somehow or the other when I see the first rains of any year my thoughts go back to the floods of that horrible date of 26 July 2005, and the horror haunts me for a while again. What a nightmare that day was … Nature equaled us all despite all of our created partitions of religion, caste, creed, wealth, beauty, position in society etc… Yeah we were all submerged in the same cesspool of garbage and human excreta… and my family was separated from me; Raunaq somewhere between home and school, Roshni at home by herself and Nu on the roads somewhere in town inching his way through an endless snarl of traffic and water.
When we all re-grouped next morning it felt like we were reborn again.
And despite the suffering we all went through as a family, the moments of humanity that were displayed by all the people, invariably bring back a smile and a tear to my eyes even to date - the city had come together in that moment of mutual helplessness, shock and grief. People helped passers-by with food, shelter, guidance; holding tight when someone stumbled through the snarling streams of water; pushing floating cars and its stranded occupants to a safer spot; speaking words of kindness.
That day humanity won the fight against nature.
After returning from a fun walk in the rain and indulging myself in pakoras and chai I reminisced, at how despite so much destruction and emotional loss the city had come together as one human force that fateful day. And AMCHI MUMBAIKAR JANTA had resurrected the very next day with some levels of awareness and humility, until the mad rush and speed of the city enveloped them again hounding them into a never ending race to become; forgetting that all they actually need to do is just BE authentic, BE in the flow and BE in a balance with the elements of life
I do wish the force of humanity would arrive and become aware of the wisdom to unite and be a single people ... truly resurrect by keeping their self-created at bay and loving all humankind purely ... because we live just once, so why not leave behind the sea of hatred and divide and evil.
Some day we will cure our world...
3 comments:
Love the rains in amchi mumbai. Great piece Pri. Love u.
Hello Sunshine......that was really kinda deep thought provoking write up,being an avid blogger myself and a few of the unfortunates to be born on the 26th of July , the deluge jokes have actually become an integral part of my life (No pun intended), but to sum it up in a manner done by you asks for an special mention...I love to be an unknown Entity who reads blogs dat i come across, sometimes accidently n at times thru common shared posts on social sites not really givin more than a second look on aspiring bloggers who try to be Writers changing the entire fundamental of bloggin...my advice to those who wanna be a writer Buy a secluded spooky holiday home,get ur type writer (Mind u a TYPEWRITER) and a Book of anecdotes and jus vanish...blogging is for people who wanna share their humble experiences not sporadic instances..and you have kept that Essense intact in all of the 41 blogs that you have penned till date...so uv got ur ideas right...( special mention to the blog where you paid your Homage to actor Ravi Baswani, now dats what i would call serious squirting of penned talent)....Alright , now dat i have laced u with ur earned Accolades, time for some brickbats, these are purely and i repeat it purely an individuals outlook towards ur style of writing, take it or flush all your call.....although ur writing shows some sudden act of brilliance and an uncanny knack of what i call hitting the sweet spot, for most part of it lacks the appeal in the construction department, the thoughts there as clear as water, the only thing that misses out is the final execution...n i was a bit disappointed and surprised that it was coming from someone whose profile says a lot...to cut a long story short u got to work on your sentence conjunctions and trust me your writeups would be a delight to read......
Yet again, this is not invasion of ur privacy or an mediocre act of showin what ur lackin but just a professional feed back from a fello blogger....Cheers for more to come from your end...
Regards, Sahil Shaikh
Thanks Sahil for your long comment and feedback. I love it when somebody takes the time read my writing and share feedback thank someone who just does a read and give a thumbs up or a smiley or a 'NICE'. So not to worry at all - keep the comments coming.
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