Moments Of Joy

I feel terribly hemmed in, in this city full of cement and tar and dust. I can’t even say I miss having nature and beauty around me since I’ve never known anything else, other than books.

But then, I catch, a chance breeze ruffling my hair…surreptitiously making its way past all the artificial barriers that this city imposes on everything that should have been right in life. And there’s something about an old cloth fluttering on the line…not for a purpose like everything else in Mumbai but just because. It’s like it’s dancing right in time to the wind, not a step out of place but without thinking, easily, laughingly, carelessly, effortlessly. Effortlessly…..is such a good word. 

I don’t know why that suddenly brings me into a sense of instant weightlessness and freedom. It’s like a moment from American Beauty where a character, watching a plastic bag caught in the wind, says

Sometimes, there’s so much beauty in this world, I can’t bear it. Then I remember to relax and let it all rain through me.

And when I throw my head back, smile into the breeze and open my eyes,

I see the sky, a brilliant blue, smiling back at me…quietly through the grey.