Cities are beautiful when they wake up, especially on Sundays. Bombay is no exception. The grime and dust of the day are yet to settle in, so there’s this lovely freshness in the air. If you’re early enough, you’ll be lucky to catch a glimpse of the ever-alert city that has given itself the permission to sleep in, for just a little longer. The large, hurrying masses that usually rule the Bombay roads aren’t there. The most hardworking of this lot are already up and about though, disregarding that delightful laziness that Sunday mornings inspire in most of us. The roads aren’t really empty; there’s just the right amount of traffic to keep you thinking on your feet, as you whiz along on silent streets.
After a long tiring gap, I got back to my Sunday morning ritual today. With Google Maps guiding me aloud on routes that are now reasonably familiar, I set out to pay a visit to the elephant-faced God who’s the darling of the city. The entire 30-minute drive to Siddhi Vinayak was a noisy one, with my mind constantly churning out one thing after another to reflect on and sort out. The morning silence was all external - nothing in my head reflected it. Then, it happened. The minute I stepped out of my car and saw the towering structure, I calmed down. It felt like the temple had a signal jammer that had blocked all communications within my mind. Not sure what exactly happened, but I sure was grateful! I felt the same silence and calmness at Mount Mary, where I went next.
There’s something exalting about most places of worship. They move you without you having to do much at all. Maybe it’s the purity of intent that seeps out of the hearts of the converging crowds. A few months back, I went to a temple with a friend who's agnostic. I rushed my prayers and got ready to leave quickly, when he stopped me and asked if we could just sit there for a while. Seeing him sit straight with closed eyes and a calm look on his face for a fair amount of time was quite something. I’d been worried about him getting bored while I prayed, and here he was, his face displaying the serenity of a Himalayan monk. That’s the effect some of these places have on you. “How have they taken something so pure and made such a mess of it?”, he asked me right after we stepped out of the temple. All I could do was smile. That unfortunate part of the story has been happening for aeons and continues to. But I remain steadfast in my belief that, at it purest, faith unites me with all of humanity - it pushes me to wish for all of us to be better and lead better lives, irrespective of who we pray to, or if we pray at all.
Back to my Sunday morning. The ritual is incomplete without some time by the waters that envelop this vast city. Usually it's Marine Drive. Today, it was Bandra Bandstand, considering I was close enough. That moment - when I first spotted the sea today as I drove down steep Bandra roads - will stay with me for quite some time.
I was last here as an anxious teen, waiting for my class 12 results. I remember obsessing over whether I would get good enough marks and “make my family proud”, and wondering about what the future would bring. 16 years later, this morning, all I felt was the futility of worrying about results, and the need to focus only on the efforts.
Whenever I'm by nature - be it the skies, hills or the sea - I feel this overwhelming inspiration to strip away the inessential, and bring my focus back to what matters to me, without the noise of the world around. Moments like these have changed the course of my life in many ways. Most of my major life decisions have happened in the backdrop of nature and the lessons she brings. The flabby thoughts go away, and the clarity that sets in leaves me recharged. Of course, just a bit of time with civilisation and a lot of the flab comes back! I promised to myself today to hold on to this lesson - of stripping away the inessential - just a little bit longer than I have in the past. If I don’t, well, there's always another day, and more teaching moments. For now, I'm hopeful.
As for Bombay and its multitudes, I saw them - on my drive home - getting back to their frenetic Sunday rhythm, which is only a little slower than that of the rest of the week. I guess, if the beauty of nature and spirituality lies in stillness, Bombay’s lies in its busyness. And I’m lucky that I get to enjoy both on Sunday mornings like these.
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