And there I was, eyes glued wide open as the train pushed its way through a softening mist. The rhythmical pitter patter of the train wheels smashing against the rusty steel tracks had kept me awake for long enough to watch the Sun rise across the city. This place feels dark, yet I could see small bright lights, like fireflies glistening from peoples eyes in the dark carriage as they looked over towards me with a faint curiosity. I turned my eyes outward, to rolling fields and huts with tin metal roofs and wooden walls, and there it was amongst it all, this mist that permeates through all corners in the mornings. It feels almost as if you’re not supposed to be there, like you don’t belong. Like you are simply not meant to bare witness to it and yet there I was, wondering how the hell I got there.

I took a breath as we pulled into the station, first jumping over a sleeping body on the floor, then landing onto a dry platform kicking up the dust that had settled during the night. The train was still moving, but everyone else was doing it, so I followed the way of things. The local Metro in Bombay is a wild west, a rogue wonderland of Beasts and Angels. A far cry from the air conditioned cabins that some traveler’s purchase a ticket for. “First class A.C or first class non A.C cabin, sir?” The teller would ask me that morning. “Oh, is there no standard class?” I asked quietly, “Yes sir but for you, not comfortable”. By now a group had gathered. I could feel a building pressure of curiosity behind me as hands full of coins began pushing forwards. “Well, standard is ok, I think”. These carriages are full, with tightly packed bodies leaning against each other, and when you let yourself, you lean into it forgetting for a moment and begin to melt into what you’d imagine Heaven to feel like. When you fight it, the heat takes a hold of you, you’re up against the ropes and it batters you to a pulp. You can more than smell the sweat, you feel it dripping down your back, collecting on your forehead. At first you hate it, and are conditioned to wipe it off with the corners of your sleeve. But after a while, when theres nothing left, you learn to just go with it and stop trying to control it. I took a look around, I was in Dadar station, the middle of this metropolis. I wanted to go South, but I stuck around for a while.

Walking out of the station, I noticed to my right a street vendor, selling off cuts of fruit, mango and coconut and all manner of things sweet to the tongue. Anything to ease the heat of the day. He was old and cut into the fruit rhythmically, slashing the coconut with his old battered machete, then sticking a straw in there for some light relief to passers by. To my left, I looked down and there was a small girl, a child laying naked on the street. She lay there motionless. Her hair was knotted and dry, and her skin had a layer of the white dust that seems to reign in this city. Flies circled overhead and on her body. Some had even lay rest on the sweat collecting on her little arms. Her face was distorted, set in a way with the permanent expression of pain that her short life had already come to meet. Her Mother was next to her, tending to her brother, a toddler who was upset and had the silent cries of hunger. And by the little girls foot, there was a pink flower, growing in the sandy gravel. Its petals, wilting at the edges, drooping lower as the hot sun kept rising. I watched as the old man slowly made his way over and then began to pour some water carefully, directly into the soil where the flower limply stood. He began muttering some words under his breath before opening his eyes again and returning to his stall. I looked back to the girl one last time, then up to her brother and then her Mother. I stood there for a moment, watching. I saw a family, I saw Love and I saw despair. I saw myself and I saw all the people that I have ever Loved. So I closed my eyes and I kept walking.

As I got to what looked like the main street, an orchestra of horns, machinery and an array of vendors making their days wage rang through me. So I looked up to the sky, now kissed with the pink hue that we sometimes hold on to. I tried to get my bearings. My face, appeared confident, feigning the confidence of an experienced traveler, not wanting to be seen. To not seem like an outsider. Suddenly, a chubby little boy ran across the busy road with glee in his face to meet me. “Hello, Sir! And what is your good name?” He asked as he bobbed his head from left to right, as they do. I took a second before responding. “Jack” I said, smiling back. “Please sir, welcome to Bombay. And how do you like it here?” I took a look back towards Dadar station, the old man, then the little girl, and then finally down by her feet where the flower stood. I turned back to the little boy, who was watching me with a smile that was as pure of an expression I’d ever seen. “Hot, it’s very hot”, is all I could say in that moment, as I smiled back at him. “Yes, Sir! its very hot Sir!” he said, beaming back. Then as quickly as he appeared, he was gone, and there I was, alone and yet surrounded by 21 million strangers. So I looked up towards the sky one last time, and I stood watching with ember’d eyes, as all the colours began to melt in front of me, into a harmony of old dreams. With eyes closed my thoughts along with all other things became crystalline clear, until all that I could hear was the silence that surrounds everything, like the mist that comes and goes. And so with my eyes open again, I was back, and so too the familiar sweat began it’s journey south, collecting on my head and down my cheek falling into the ground, where I watched as it left it’s little mark in the soil until it finally let go, sinking into the dry Earth. And as I watched, I noticed that for the briefest of seconds, I knew that for just that moment in time, amongst the eternity of it all, I was there, that I too was part of the symphony unfolding in front of me. So I smiled, like the boy before me. And that was it, that was Dadar.