After completing the required nocturnal duties at my grandparents’ place I prepared for a 2.3 kms night time stroll around 11 pm. To accompany me was my faithful fully charged mobile phone with music loaded. I started off with “Tum Se Hi” from Jab We Met.
Chembur at night is a sight to withhold, nothing like its daytime counter part, a time when you really realise how wide the roads are, how shady the trees and perhaps which street lights blink and which don’t. The stretch was spent on speed walking and therefore I didn’t have much time to think about anything. The street lights were covered by wonderful shady trees. The only thing I can remember now about this stretch which lasted about 5 mins was the cool breeze.
The second section of the walk I slowed down as did the music – “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack played into my ears. I guess I felt some kind of hope in efforts I was making to get myself a job (top priority in any Indian family) and thought to myself that I could even perhaps open a space consultancy firm. The only question arising is whom will I consult with. I think I have an idea or two up my sleave besides consulting (I really doubt if multi nationals will consult with a person fresh out of college) which I still need to work on. Shelve that and immediate concerns come up – getting home, worries about grandpa’s health and my brother’s exam tomorrow balanced out with working on my own study schedule. You really get shaped in an all round manner like never before if you want to in those 4 years that you do engineering with Mumbai University (considered one of the toughest and best universities in the country).
The third section of the walk had me listening to Delhi 6 and the Masakali song. I think it refers to a pigeon. Anyway, there are several interpretations on the meaning of the song, I take it as an adventures of a pigeon song. Kinda fits. After this initial bantering about recent events, I settled down to a steady pace and looked up to the sky for the first time. Reason: No shady trees. That was a breath taking sight to behold. Hardly ever have I seen a sky like this over Mumbai. Thoughts about space naturally creep in. The upcoming SINC 2009, thinking about ideas for activities to do in IYA 2009 and trying to identify constellations (which I’m trying to learn on the sly). Besides Orion (which is perhaps the famous constellation) I also spotted Canis Major. A wonderful sight in all and perhaps a few more stars than you would expect to see here.
As I closed in, Slumdog Millionaire’s Mausam & Escape provided a breath taking back ground music score for the skies above. They should try it in Planetariums perhaps. I was then distracted by the acrid smell from the burning at the nearby Deonar Dumping Grounds and that pretty much spoiled my mood for anything more and I sat down to one more round of twittering, contrary to the “no-gprs-till-Thursday” plea. Sigh.
I guess besides everything, this post tries to give you an insight into my thought structure and how some of the songs affected my thinking. I am planning to do this on my morning stroll to the railway station, where my thoughts always seem to be crowded on the day ahead and I could use some de-stressing. Let’s experiment, I don’t plan to share the results publicly, they’ll be in my notebook.
Parallel Spirals 