Bombay or Mumbai

A few strands of grey hair here and a few lines on her face there, she stood outside the glass doors. With a bouquet grasped in her hands, she earnestly looked over the crowd……searching for me, her daughter.

I stood outside the office, held in an embrace by a hunched, pot bellied man whose smell reminds me of deep, secure, comfortable sleep. Baba.

Whine. Whimper. Yelp. Squeak. A blur of black and white fur. A wet nose in my ear. A lick across my neck. Apache.

Raindrops. Drizzle. Puddles. Grey sky. Grey sea. Grey buildings. Grey thoughts.

Drive down the Eastern Express. To Bandra, past Parel. Then to Worli via the sea link. Then off towards Colaba.

Lunch in Leopold’s. I spot the bullet holes. Not enamoured.

The week turns out to be grey.

I can feel the eyeballs burning into my back as I walk into campus.

I don’t care. I’m grey. Grey doesn’t care.

As the hours pass by.

Sunlight appears over Grey Bombay.

Bandra: A few cobbled roads. Quaint Christian houses. Lovely stores and boutiques.

Colaba: Anitiques hanging by the roadside. Uber cool youth roughly brushes past. Lebanese food at Picadilly. Parsi food at Paradise.

Carter Road: ‘Out of the Blue’ and ‘Olive’

Andheri: Anna’s and Rohan’s house. Tina and B’s hotels.

Powai: College in the uber cool Hiranandani layout.

Mahim: Graffiti on the roadside walls.

Parel: Dad’s office. Pheonix Mills.

Worli: A mall and the Sea link.

Sion: Doesn’t it rhyme with ‘lion’?

Ghatkopar: R City Mall. Tara’s place.

Thane: A village. With big, huge apartments. My home.

Trains: Malleable dough of seemingly unimportant human flesh.

Gateway of India: It’s smaller than I thought it would be.

Taj: Still standing strong. Also smaller than I thought it would be.

Bollywood: Amitabh’s House. A very pregnant Perizaad Zorabian. A scrawny Amrita Rao.

Friends: Anna. Purti. Rohan. Pavi. Tanu. And more.

A constant: B.

Now, I see colours.