Sunday, April 29, 2012

Home Alone 2 in Mumbai


Nothing gets spookier than staying alone in a 12th floor, 4BHK apartment in a super metro city like Mumbai and when it gets beyond 3-4 days you slip in Blues mode. I was feeling all this because one odd week my all flat mates were either on a family holiday or officially out of Mumbai for Three-four days. It had been ages since I had experienced such a feeling of being alone and stranded. I still remember my 2008 Kolkata days, when I joined Aircel (fresh from my MBA college) as a management trainee and was forced to take the marketing and communication role for Rest of BengalSouth region, taking care of Nadia, Murshidabad, Birbhoom and Parts of Midnapore districts. It wasn't just about a new job assignment, it's more of cultural, habitual and social challenge. It was a real 'Survivor' series experience. I was putting up in a small, laid back and old town Krishna nagar and that was the time, when I first encountered fear of being alone (in night) with grasshopper's stridulation in the background, howling voices from a distant and moon-light playing hide-n-seek just outside my room's window. My room was just in the midst of a spread lawn, which would go to sleep (along with the complete city) by 8 in the evening and you would left with no other choice except to crawl into your bed, cling to your quilts and set to brave long dark-nights. I still remember every other night I would have tried to forget the loneliness and immerse myself in daily chores or talking over phone to catch a sound sleep but with little success. It continued for almost two months and then I had two local Bengali, office colleagues cum flat mates to rescue me from the rather extended solitude. Since then I had been to Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai but always had healthy company of room or flat mate /s. But those first two months in Krishna nagar made me vulnerable to the combo of 'night and fear' so much so that Today I still can't watch a horror movie alone in the night. It would take all my 'Roadies courage' to get adventurous for a horror entertainment in night, once in a blue moon.

This time in Mumbai it was like Home Alone -2, waking up every morning and finding self alone in the four bed room home was hard to believe. And Mumbai is notoriously famous for making you feel an outcast even in the crowdest places like Marine drive or a Local train ride. I know Mumbaiya loyalists would argue me for the city being a second home to them but mates let's be true to ourselves, it's one of the better compromises available on the list, period. Now I could relate to the lives of celebrities in Mumbai, the stardom, money, fans leave a void in their lives, a loneliness, which actually can't be filled by any engagement except togetherness. That's why every break-up come real heavy on a celebrity because it's irreplaceable in all forms and post their heydays, the fame turns their nemesis and would leave them stranded in a marshland of blues, emptiness and fear. These experiences make you realize that Life is soft and fast, you would have to live it delicately and carefully. It is to be lived with peoplego out make friends, date your love, live in a joint family, get into a Live-In relationship, value relations and respect emotions. And a special message to all those, who anoint themselves as a loner and claim that life has not been just to them; value yourself and learn that togetherness is a giftembrace and love it!




...Annu

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