Thursday, June 12, 2014

These Bombay Shores

My friends and I sit silently on the edge of a park in Bombay as dusk turns to night, our faces turned toward the wild grey sea. Today the wind is rough and cool, and if you hold completely still you can actually feel where it meets the hot city air. 

I watch the waves below me -- following one at a time as they crest and break on the jagged rocks. Beyond the water is an arching bridge and skyscrapers illuminated in yellow light. A cluster of women in black hijabs gossip on the stone wall on one side of us, and determined joggers turn their faces toward the breeze as they make their rounds. Elderly couples saunter by in comfortable silence, their hands clasped behind their backs. I hear no one.

Everything, suddenly, feels like home. Like Clearwater Beach at night with my best friends, and the dock that stretches into the Anclote River behind my parents' house. Like watching the Potomac ebb under the M St. bridge in D.C.; that one quiet spot along the Arno in Florence. The rivers and oceans and seas flow into each other and I could be sitting on any of their shores, just belonging. And I'm not the only one.

The other day I met a traveler en route to Brazil at a cafe in Bandra — a soft-mannered guy with kind eyes and a stubbly beard. He had spent the day taking photos in the hot sun and we drank coconut water and jaggery coffee and talked about where we had been. After sharing a few adventures the talk turned to Bombay and the city's chaotic grace. There was something magical here, a quiet sort of humanity living among the fishermen's nooks and bustling Dharavi market and lover's perches on Bandstand. He took a sip of his coffee and said, "I have this theory that living on the water is good for the soul.” 

I smiled because nothing is coincidence. This is the same theory I've held for a while, created with my toes in the ocean: the idea that people must live on the water, or amid the mountains, or in the desert -- anything vast and natural and divine -- to feel truly happy. That without something expansive and beyond our grasp for reference, it is far too easy to slip into our minds and think the reality we've created is the only thing that exists. 

Out here on the edge of the sea, with the wind in my hair and the rush of water drowning out millions of voices, I  have no doubt that there is more. I feel like one of the rocks on the shore, at the mercy of the sun and waves and stars. And for now this city is as much home as anywhere in the world could be. 

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