The unplanned love for a city

Wow, long… long time and no posts.

So much has happened. I’m officially a Fashion Design graduate now… yep I did it. Our final year graduation fashion show was an amazing experience, and after that we had a couple more weeks wherein we completed our portfolios. It has been the biggest experience in my life so far, studying and living in Bombay. It’s a place filled with raw reality. The one that’s often hidden from you on purpose. The one that you go searching for desperately yet not everybody gets a glimpse of it.

I feel like I’ve gotten something very important from life. I’ll always have a bit of Bombay in me. And I’d always go back. The streets, the people, the lifestyle, marine drive… I can’t say what it is exactly, but it’s a city that’s got everything. Right from A-Z. It’s the beauty from within. You see, when you enter Bombay, you’d be noticing the pollution, the certain hard-earned stink that parts of bombay carry, maybe the insane floods if it’s monsoon season (that’s literally what I first walked into!)…and maybe the traffic and all the people and the life bustling around you will drive you nuts, but once you start living the bombay life… it all somehow adds up. You notice how anything and everything can be done here… you may (like me) feel safe to take long walks at night around bandra and feel absolutely amazing, dodging all the people around you if you will, in fact they don’t even bother you anymore…  You realize how important life is, how important it is to understand people. How important it is to be nice, and how easy it is. I remember sitting by bandstand and I saw this whole family come up with this plastic basin filled with used utensils and a huge bucket of clothes to wash by the sea. First I noticed the mother washing the dishes and the daughter helping her, then I saw the dad washing the pile of clothes, and the daughter went back and forth between the two of them. They were there for at least an hour. So was I. Watching them. Feeling helpless. Those were some of the times I’d try to get it in my head to be grateful for my life. And to believe that what I think is hard in my life might really not be so, and there’s far more going on in the world and the importance of being aware is severe. I’m not saying they’re leading miserable lives, just hard lives. The more I visited bandstand the more I witnessed this. Amongst other things in other places. This is just one among the many experiences that Bombay has given me. People would always say “life passes you by when you’re in bombay”…”it’s so fast-paced!”…but really? Pay attention to life here then you won’t ever say that. You can watch life HD if you like, living in Bombay. It’s that vivid.

On a much lighter note, the other day my friend called me while he was waiting in line to get his hair cut at the local barbers’ at

muhammad Ali road… at 1.oo am! He was 5th in line for a haircut at 1.00 am. And again I thought… no. place. like. Bombay. With a huge smile on my face.

I initially started this post thinking I’ll post all about my fashion show, WHICH IS A HUGE DEAL! …but then I got all nostalgic about Bombay, so I guess a whole other post will be coming up about my show.

Later!

thank you bombay!