I spent a chunk of my school years in this strange baug that felt more homely than home itself.
Loneliness can lead you to the most wonderful places, it can introduce you to the most beautiful people and yet, once the rising sun shuffles back to its origin,
When the darkness begins to set in,
When all your social identities decide to rest,
You see the vulnerable, scared creature down the hallway, looking at himself in a mirror that reflects the truth.
I made a lot of friends in this place, it was so chaotic, and I loved it. I lived in a sea-facing apartment at marine drive, where the conversations I had, were mostly with salty winds that blew my way.
All the luxury that was once bestowed upon me had turned into dust. Completely inconsequential, shallow, superficial and barely human.
I found a pulsating heart at cusrow baug. Many actually. Their minds were filled with fun, laughter and zest, something I knew nothing of. The enticing faces of the Parsi residents and the kids who played football at the centre of the field made me envy the community in which they were raised.
There was something that I had never seen - life.
Cusrow Baug has CCTV camera’s in the form of the elderly. At no point in time can you see a balcony devoid of an adorable soul glaring at you with their piercing eyes.
Greenery was the grand attraction of this arena, with a huge field in the centre of the baug and next to it was a tree and stone-made seats.
The seats had a peculiar scent. Love triangles, the bitter ending to relationships, the beginning of a romance, the success of a job, the failure of friendship, all of it conjoined to form a potion of memories that I can smell even today.
Success in Mumbai has become synonymous with loud and luxurious sky-scrapers, it has become one with the definition of commercial progress and has completely lost touch with how people are with each other.
Emotions rule me and I refuse to follow the life-less path of the stoics. If I am here, refusing my mind to experience the bitter-sweet air of life, I might as well suffocate and die within the 4 walls of undeserved luxury.
I found a home with over 500 families that I do not know of, and neither do they.
This is a simple relic in Mumbai that I wish is preserved as long as the moon continues to circumambulate the Earth.
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