| Shilpi Bhardwaj | July 2024 | Photo Essay |
I arrived in Mumbai by train, nauseated at the sight of buildings that looked like stacks and rows of cards ready to topple over, but never do. I arrived and Mumbai stretched its infinite belly and let me in. It reeked of something. Opportunities? Dreams? Disappointments? I would figure out months later that it was us. Our sweat and blood and filth filled Mumbai’s belly and made it reek and bleed and rot. I arrived in Mumbai carrying the burden of my crimes, committed in a dissociated state of alcohol-induced mania. I was running away from Campus and the person I had become there. I was falling and I hoped to God, if there ever was one, that Mumbai would catch me. And it did. For a while.

In a few days, my survival came to closely hinge on Marine Drive. I would let my mind wander over and around the tetrapods for hours. They kept the waves in check, where humans meant them to be. We try our best to conquer nature right up until we can’t.
On one such visit I saw him, this scantily dressed, soaking wet, not-so-strange stranger. Just his back. It was raining buckets. But that has never stopped anything in Mumbai, work or pleasure. He was standing there looking at the sea. Was he also mesmerized by the waves breaking on the pods? I never saw his face. I didn’t need to. He stood there without moving. Was he about to jump? He would get lost in the sea if he did. But he look liked he was already lost. In the sea. Like I was. He stood there, not moving, not jumping, not caring, just bearing that harsh rain and the splashes of larger waves that escaped the pods. He was oblivious to the lovers sitting next to him, making out hidden under the umbrella. He was oblivious to the millions of rupees worth of cars getting wet in the rain, he was oblivious to people’s dreams, shattered or realised. He was lost, stranded, shivering and sad. Or was I? He must have been.

He kept looking at the sea and I kept looking at him. Hours or minutes or maybe seconds had passed and he stopped being oblivious. I saw him in my mind, transcending from being human to being nothing and then everything. He was now keeping the waves in check. They had to hit him first before reaching the city. He was holding the gates of Heaven open and Hell closed. He was responsible for time pacing up and slowing down. He was everything that Mumbai was. All encompassing, sad and happy, dark and vibrant, stoic and feeble. This scantily dressed not-so-strange stranger that day was Mumbai for me.
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Shilpi is a freelance writer on a quest to find a vocation that combines her love for literature and science. She has a Masters degree in Cognitive Science and she believes that getting an interdisciplinary degree is the most rewarding and terrifying of all experiences. She’s passionate about learning how and why the brain functions and malfunctions. The mental process she finds to be the most fascinating is mind-wandering which is why she loves capturing instances of untethered thoughts through her camera and with her pen. She is a huge Ghibli fan and can watch Miyazaki movies on a loop. She has been struggling with Depression and PTSD, is pretty vocal about it and never misses a chance to help people understand, normalise and accept mental illnesses.
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An interesting read.