Wednesday 12 July 2017

Being Stared At While Smoking In Bombay

Bombay, where i live now, is supposed to be the most important city in india. She was all praises for it. She wanted me to come here. I would've had to anyway. I just accepted the first offer which came my way. I needed a steady source of income. The job was in Bombay. She calls it Bombay and not Mumbai. So i do the same. I moved here.

It's time to break it to people. Bombay is not what it is believed to be. It is a far cry from 'progressive'. I face all kinds of discrimination here. Owing to my looks, clothes i wear, complexion, language, my South Indian identity and on one occasion, laughter.

Bombay doesn't make me want to blog like how Kolkata did. Whenever i tell people that i don't like this place they tell me that i will, eventually. Yes, it had happened in Kolkata. I had hated the place when i went there to give my interview at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute [SRFTI]. But it grew on me and made me a moth in its dusty, dull landscape of buildings and people.

With Bombay came depression, job, house, money but never love.

It's okay. Maybe i'll find it.

Came here to note down a fact. More number of people stare at me when i smoke in Bombay than in Kolkata. Once a man clicked my picture when i was smoking. When i smoke in the parking space in office, people gather in corridors to stare at me.

Much progressive. This.

'Commute': On my way to work, one day


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