walk free, head up high

i used to walk around a lot when i was younger. all around the city.
i remember walking from churchgate station to colaba almost everytime i went
there. friends thought i was insane. but i guess i fell in love with this city like that. Just walking around looking at things and talking to myself about them in my head.

i think if a city permits you to walk freely inside it, its worth living there.
delhi , you cant do that too much. first its the weather and then of course its not terribly safe. but bombay is brilliant. as it usually is:)

try walking through the city during ganapati. its complete utter madness, like a giant circus has spilled out on the roads. this was the first year i did this. walked around in the midst of all the loudspeakers, drunks, gulal streaked kids, aunties dancing on the roads with wild abandon, and other bizarre creatures that seem to only emerge when its a 'mob gone wild' moment.

of course its all nto really about the festival. its just that time of the year when normal people can be outrageous and rebel against the despair, struggle, constant strain that the city puts on everyone of us. that time when you can do all the things you cant right there in front of everyone on the street. but the best part is really being the spectator and watching what i love calling it - "the spectacle of release"

even ordinarily though, walking in bombay is pure fun. honest to god i discover something new about this insane place every single day. and every 2 seconds the scene changes, somehting happens, something shifts. once while walking to work, at 10 am , a twelve year old girl comes up to me in a rickshaw and asks me "shahid kapur ka ghar kidhar hai?" jeez. moments like these make me wanna hug bombay.

how did it get this mad? err.. could it possibly be that people from all over the world come here and bring their own special version of madness thus creating the biggest rave party in the world called mumbai? hmmm.. maybe a certain tiger cub should consider this. but of course, one cant expect reason from a power hungry animal.

but im not too alarmed. if bomb blasts, riots, and worst of all the BMC cant shut us down, one more voice of stupidity is not going to achieve jack.

i think a poster campaign for the city is forming in my mind will post soon