Dead letters

THIS IS TO INFORM YOU THAT THE FOLLOWING LETTERS THAT YOU HAD POSTED DATED 23rd SEPTEMBER, 2007, COULD NOT BE SENT AT THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS BECAUSE IT IS INCORRECT, THE PLACE WHERE YOU WISH TO SEND IT DOES’NT EXIST, THE RECEIVER DOES’NT EXIST. HENCE IT IS BEING RETURND. KINDLY CHECK THE NECESSARY DETAILS AND TRY RESENDING THEM.

LETTER 1:

“ Dear friend,
I really don’t know how to begin and where to begin, it feels strange that I am writing to you, you of all the people. Letters are always written to people who are distant. Far and remote is their existence in your memory so much so that you need to write to them to remind them and mostly yourself that they exist! It was just yesterday when each night I went to bed, I knew I am going to meet you in the morning! Every thought, every word, every memory has you in it! So now as those statistics have changed, I feel a little awkward. A little ill at ease you could say.

Mumbai is a strange city friend, too big in many ways and too small in many. It sometimes fascinates me and sometimes makes me choke. Sometimes I think that perhaps its not the city, perhaps it is ‘change’ that makes me feel so. And change is always difficult. I stare at the blinking cursor again, don’t know what to add to the few lines I have just written, see… this is what mumbai has done to me…it has made me numb. Or is it change?……
I feel this numbness most of the times now… nothing surprises me any more, the star struck wanna bes, the open prostitution carried out on the streets, the overdressed or the underdressed.. Nothing intimidates me, the high rises, the expensive cars, the brands, cigarettes, alcohol…nothing…Mumbai most of all..only inspires me..
It inspires me to survive and to excel. Like the city has done in itself. To others it might seem that terrorist attacks are the biggest challenges the city faces.. but I know the biggest challenge it faces..{like me}…is change. Everyday…its government, its people..are trying to make some or the other changes to it!.. Slamming it with elite offices, choking it with lavish eateries and extravagant malls… folding it into wraps through fly overs and well connected roads…squeezing out every bit of its existence and making it more and more modern…more contemporary!!…it is always alive…its nocturnal beasts never let it sleep…it is always burning.. With buildings and railways being bombed down over night…and being rebuilt over night! Everyday mumbai survives another day and looks forward to the next…it dies a thousand deaths. And lives a thousand lives.. Everyday scores of people come to this city…hoping that they would rule over it someday.. Thinking that they would exploit its opportunities…and make success out of it!…I don’t know whether its ironic or its sad! But the city does have a soul!. Which people fail to rather don’t choose to recognise. Not much botheration is given to its culture or heritage.. everything is overcast by its ‘oh so celebrated’… fast pace which is more of a Babel than a euphoria. ‘yeh mumbai hai bhai…yaha paise se zyaada wakt kimti hai’….that’s what they say here friend. The people don’t recognise this city in any other way.. And the city in turn doesn’t recognise its people. Not knowing who it makes rich and who sleeps hungry in the streets, It works in its own autonomous whim.
So while travelling in crowded buses when I clutch my wallet and keep it close to me… a voice inside tells me…don’t be scared to lose…be prepared for it, be prudent enough to find alternatives….be strong enough to survive. In these few months of my stay I have managed to find a friend in the soul of this city. There have been hard times, moments of dire loneliness and desperation.. there have been nights I have sobbed silently in the darkness of my room.. Yearning, cribbing and feeling lost!..and the city had contained me within itself!.. Showing no mercy or consideration. it had consumed me and made me disappear within the night time darkness. Giving me all the time in the world to cry but never falling for my weaknesses and never letting me show them either. Yes, it has its own way of empathising… so each morning I re-emerge with a new spirit just like the city as it emerges from oblivion. My eyes, not wet from the night…give an expression rather more befitting of what others think of me!.. and hence I set out …pursuing the course of my day..and inturn my future. It keeps reminding me that it is not my home, that this is not where I belong….that I need to travel the world in search of belongingness and I’ll return home to find it. With my spirit imbibing the city’s deliberate numbness and its techniques of survival and success..i would say these are indeed my days of enlightenment, an enlightenment of a different genre..i guess. And long after..when my days are done in this city.. perhaps it would never remember me..but I shall remember it always….

There are many things I wish to say…but I restrain myself thinking all can’t be said at once. So I make an end here my friend. An interim pause is what you should consider this end to be…My days as you can see are eventful. Of all other things your absence is very discomforting. When we shall meet again.. too remains indefinitely undetermined. But I hope that it is soon enough. Take care of your self. And I don’t know what else. Hehehe…”

Love
Reema