Tales of resilience and other things

I've been wanting to post about a lot of things, but been postponing it. And it had become difficult to start writing again. Today I just forced myself to log on and was surprised at how good it feels :-)

People keep talking about "The Spirit of Bombay". I had not really believed that this city is any different from others. But the day of the b'bay train blasts made me change my mind. This place IS different.

Stuck in traffic. All the cars around me packed - not a single empty seat. Whenever we start moving, people on the sidewalk try to hitch a ride with any car that has a seat empty. Surprising thing is that most cars with some room do stop and pick up total strangers. Not seeming to care whether people with wet clothes would ruin their precious seats. Can't imagine this in any other city.

Been stuck in a mammoth traffic jam for the last 2.5 hours or so. We've barely moved 2 kms in this time. I'm so hungry. Thought I'd get home much sooner. A cab ride that normally takes 75 mins at the most has already taken more than double that. And looks like it might never end. We haven't even moved in the last 20 mins. Suddenly I see 10-11 year old kids darting between the cars in the jam - passing around bottles of water. "Would you like some water? Biscuits? Tea?" Would I!!! I'd have killed for any of that. Gratefully gulped down the tea and water. Saw the kid running back to a shop nearby and getting a fresh supply of biscuits. We start moving and I see more shops on the way doing the same thing - handing out biscuits and tea for free. All of us could afford to pay. But they don't even ask. Maybe they feel that they are doing their bit to help all of us get through this dreadful day. And yeah - it did strike me that we had been passing through a muslim neighbourhood. Maybe they were saying that they sympathise with us - the hapless victims, the people of the city. And that they were reminding us that we all have to struggle together to live. We have to help each other survive here. Signs of this in everyday life - cabbies who shrug off 1 or 2 Rs if neither of you have change (this for a 13Rs ride!), passengers taking your bag and put it on the shelf in the suburban trains, people pausing to give you detailed directions when they see that you don't know your way around...

Here is to the best city that I've lived in!

The city has resilience. And me? Not as much. But I'm a survivor too. And as usual I've been helped along the way by friends - both old and new. My newest and one of my best friends - Mich - Thanks for just being you and for showering me with affection! Chris - thanks for skipping lunch on many days to listen to me sob on your shoulder all over again and saying the same things that you've heard dozens of times and never once being impatient. Joe - for just listening and not being judgemental. And Rajesh - for coming back at a time that I really felt bad about losing two close friends and bringing that number down to one (though even that is one too many for me!). Paul - for all the advise and playing agony aunt.

Of Pneumonia and the rain
I wonder if it is psychological. Or is there something in the a/c ducts at the gym. I vow to start working out regularly again and hit the gym. The next day I always wake up feeling feverish or with a cold. Skipped my workouts because of the flu for a week. The next week it was the rains. The third week it was the bomb blasts. And then I started my workouts and woke up saturday with what the doc described as "early signs of pneumonia". Pneumonia!!! I thought that was something people came down with only in O. Henry stories and Satyajit Ray films. Well, so there I was laid up in bed and swallowing something like 20 tablets a day for a whole week. A drug cocktail that has left me so weak that I haven't dared to even think about starting to work out again. Maybe I will this weekend ;-)

Good thing about the rain when you don't have to go out - it is really nice to sit on the balcony sipping hot irish coffee (made even nicer by a dash of bacardi or whisky - or both) and watch the rain lash through the sky. The rain drowns out the noise of traffic from the street. And the traffic is less too. Who'd want to step out unless they absolutely had to in this weather!

ubergeek, the