Nightly walks

Nightly walks 

 I am a lifelong walker. I walk transcending times, and territories, climates, and calamities. I walk in parks, forests, markets, parking lots, and on beaches, as well as hills. I even walk in our tiny 800 sq ft flat. For me, walking is life. Not waking is death. 

Retirement has changed a few things. For decades, I used to be out for a walk at the stroke of 5.30 am with a stick in hand and not a care in the world. After freedom from the bondage of the corporate clock, I go for my walks at 8 am, often returning via my coffee shop. 

 In my prime, my wife and I would grab dinner or a late-night movie even after returning home from work. We would drive through the throbbing and pulsating midnight life of Mumbai. Alas, not anymore. I prefer to be homebound in the evening, nursing my whiskey, watching the sunset over the blue ocean from my window. 

On a spur of a moment in one of the quirky moments of otherwise sedate and mundane life, I began taking walks, rater a stroll after dinner. It is not a long walk but I enjoy the street full of people, most returning from the work, shops busy plying their trade, and young revelers just beginning to enhance their pleasure. 

As I step out of the Sea Croft, the building where I live, the first thing I notice is a clutch of youthful dog walkers in a city starved of time and space. Not a dog lover myself, I move on without showing the slightest interest in them. The dogs however keenly and suspiciously watch my stick and me. 

 I am dazed by the sheer range of lights and display in storefronts making our street look like a Christmas tree. Food delivery boys and girls zooming past on little scooters leave behind an irresistible scent of pizzas and pau-bhaji making me hungry. 

The stream of people returning from their full day’s toil appears to be surprisingly energetic and fresh. I am not sure I returned home with so much vigor during my work life. 

I walk through a narrow lane dotted with small homes on both sides, watching families sitting down to dinner in front of the TV, children preparing for a new school day, and housewives sighing relief that one grueling day is over for them. 

The narrow lane opens into the Carter road promenade that is lighted like it is Sun shining at noon. Evening walkers are hurrying home and are being replaced by the youngsters who never seem to be in a hurry to go home. 

There is a short strip mall lined with small kiosks selling an astonishing variety of food, from the Japanese to Javanese and Mongolian to Mangalorean. I walk past series of coffee shops taking a deep sigh of disappointment for my incapacity to enjoy a cup that will fuel my insomnia. 

I slowly walk back to my home lane, partly darkened as few streetlights are off today. Most of the handcart vendors are packing off and some storefronts are switching off lights though they will remain open till 11 pm. 

I enter my building where the security guards' shift has changed so I get their salutation and the warm welcome of tail wagging of the resident cats of our building.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Diary of an insomniac

Diary of an insomniac     It is 1 am in the night. Most FM radio stations are off the air. My eyes are tired of reading. Watching TV is not recommended for insomnia. I am debating in my mind the options of midnight snacks. As of yet, there are no signs of sleep.   I open the window of my bedroom. Sea breeze floods my lungs with the salty air. I watch a long raw of ships anchored on the horizon i n the moonlit white night,  They are lighted like the Christmas trees. Our building is shrouded in silence that pervades the world around us after 1 a.m. A faint laughter waffles in from the railway colony across the street, a family enjoying the late-night movie perhaps.   I step out of my bedroom and stare silently at the turret of the St. Anne’s church in our backyard. The relentlessly punctual chime of the church wakes me up every day at 5.30 am. It’s only a few hours from now.   On impulse, I step out of the flat and take the elevator down. One of the two, nigh...
Read more

Wanderlust 2021

Wanderlust 2021  I am blessed with wanderlust from my boyhood. An elderly aunt of mine took me on my first train journey to Mumbai was when I was 11. We arrived on a gloomy, rainy day in 1962. A war was simmering with China. Shammi Kapoor’s all-time hit film ‘Professor’ was running to a packed house at Novelty in Grant road where we stayed.  As we disembarked from Saurashtra Mail, I had no way of knowing that this travel will turn into a lifelong wanderlust for me, that an old aunt with whom I came I would soon lose to cancer.  Life restricted my boyhood wanderlust to places around my small hometown, a cycle trip to a dam nearby, a family picnic by camel cart to a distant park or temple. The farthest travel from home in my memory was to Rajkot, mere 50 miles in 1965 when Pakistan tried bombing our hometown and failed miserably.  These outings had sown seeds to see more, dream more, travel more, choose a path of unending journey. At 18, I traveled to Mumbai with two ...
Read more

Weekend woes

  Weekend woes Friday   Mumbai weekends bear the character of its own, like everything else. Friday morning is when it begins. Everyone at work drifts in a bit slower than normal. Their gait announces whiff of freedom from the tyranny of the week. The coffee machine whirs slowly and bears witness of the gossip that gets louder.   Friday dressing transforms lobby and corridors into riots of colors as opposed to mournful whites and blacks. Menus of new eateries fly thick and fast over the intranet. By 12 pm, hoards of office goers exit for a liquid lunch that ends at 3 pm.   Bars in and around offices fill up by 6 pm and are three layers thick. Drinks are consumed in rapid-fire rounds as if to drown all trials and tribulations of the week. Married members of the gang have their eyes on the clock to catch 7.30 pm Borivali fast. Home beacons to them. Those adventurous enough to stay back begin to order paneer or chicken tikka masala and cheese naan.  Saturday Saturd...
Read more