Koyaliya Mat Kar Pukar

Today pretty much blew.
Mostly for trivial reasons.
And one nontrivial one.
Which I, of course, dont remember.
Or rather choose not to.

What I do remember is a wonderful feeling.
From a long long time ago.

I know this "wonderful feeling" doesnt exactly go with the grain of how I dove into this post, but what the hell!
Not like my thoughts r ever coherent!

So I was sitting in the bus.
Pretty glumly, I would say.
I could almost feel my chin scraping against the floor of the bus.

Ok, this is an exaggeration.
It scraped only when the bus went over a speedbreaker.
And Bangalore has quite a few of them.
As if it wasnt already tough enough being glum.

But we're talking about a feeling.
A wonderful feeling in bold-n-italics!

I have always loved watching things whizz by.
People.
The world.
Life.
And at the risk of sounding cliched, deadlines!

I love sitting at the window of a speeding car or bus,
and shutting off all the noise around me.
That's not easy, but once I manage to do that, it's amazing.
Watching.
Listlessly.
Silently.
At the world, whizzing past.

It's as if I'm watching a silent film.
But in color.

And without fail, I'm reminded of this scene from some movie.
There's a camera in the vehicle.
It's night outside.
There's lights.
I dunno if this is correct English, but in my mind, there's lights.
From streets, shop-windows.
Sometimes from fairy-lights.
And all of them whizzing past.

And for some weird unknown reason, I've always found this very soothing.
It always seems a bit surreal, those ribbons of light streaking past.
As if Life itself has become, mercifully, if only for a few moments, Unreal.
And me, a distant detached silent spectator.
It's probably the only reason I clamor for a window-seat.

To tell you the truth, I was pretty depressed.
The soothing feeling of watching the world whizz by, notwithstanding.
The scraping chin pretty much established that.
As a final, desperate measure, I turned to music.
Slipped on my headphones and blindly hit the play button.

It was Begum Akhtar.
Admonishing.
"Koyaliya Mat Kar Pukar"

But it was good.
I closed my eyes.
And was transported to a cab-ride.
From a long time ago.

And I couldnt help smiling.
Inspite of the scraping chin.

It was Bombay.
Night.
A black-n-yellow Premier Padmini cab whizzing past Regal.
Jehangir Art Gallery, Fort...
The window rolled up almost all the way up.
She, there.
Staring straight ahead.
The I'm-never-ever-gonna-talk-to-you sort.
An occasional gust of wind, blowing back her hair.
A pearl earring in that undulating darkness.
It was wonderful.
Waiting for that gust of wind.
The stern face still staring straight ahead.
But sometimes throwing furtive glances through the corner of those eyes.
Big. And black.
And on being caught, making a face.
That face against a world whizzing by a cab window.

And I couldnt help smiling.

I still cant.