Sensual
"If I could describe Bombay in a word," she said, "it would be sensual"Ā
She stepped closer as she said it, until her face was within an inch of my own. I had to turn my head.Ā If I had thought I had been walking around the city with an open embrace, I was humbled by the intricacies I could not bear to see on her skin. Ā
But it was true- I had startedĀ believing in water. TheĀ universal solvent. Every night, itĀ left nothing on my skin but me, not a single salty drop of humanity.
Not the exhaust choking the streets, not the dust invading the sides of my toenails, not the red paan-stains in the corners of staircases, not the heat of the sunlight crowded into the markets, not the little hands tugging on my sleeve.
Not the waves of scent at the masala store. Not the smiles exchanged with sari-clad aunties pulling near-naked children. Not the voices, the shouts, the advertisements, the calls to prayer blasted from tinny speakers, all collecting in the curves of the cartilage in my ears.
The water took it all. It leaves me nothing, not even the young man's lovely singing, metered by his footsteps down the gully.
Mumbai has no space for echoes, except in people's minds. Ā
Don't think about where this man's hands have been as he serves you food. Don't think about who has slept on these sheets before you. Don't think about why the taxi seat was wet, don't, just don't, don't think.Ā
We were all knee-deep in monsoon, that day, wading delicately through brownish flood waters. Raising brightly colored umbrellas which are slowly losing relevance. The fellow selling lychees on a wooden cart stands resolute and soaked at his street-corner. He wonders why I laugh.
"You are FEARLESS!"Ā I want to shout at him.
At this city.Ā
And they might laugh at me, too, for my silliness or ask me why I look so happy in the water.Ā













