My Mumbai Saga - The Beginning

June 2015. I land in the Mumbai airport, this time I was not visiting. I was here to make a life. The first time I had fully expanded the wings, I had slowly grown over the years, and took flight. I was normal. Very normal so to say. A software engineer like many others in the country. Working in a huge MNC that was flooded with others like me. But here I was choosing to be as far away from comfort as I could be without ruffling too many feathers. 

Mumbai the city of dreams, they say. You come fall in love and never recover, they say. A city of vibrance and colour and life. There are too many adjectives describing this place. Way too many writings on its beauty, secularity, variety, crimes, distress, poverty and richness. This city is all of that and none of that at the same time. I am not writing about a place I feel in love with or the city that I hate but about that place that shaped me as an individual and made me grow in the last two years. 

When you step out of the comfort zone you learn new things. This is something that is popularly believed. But there are so many things that being in the comfort zone teaches you, that you realise only after you have stepped out. Mumbai was like that for me. I did not come to go wild, party and enjoy life. I came to make a life of my own with my own two hands while I also had some fun. I did not go live in Bandra or work for some creative company or meet fantastic people, like the movies show. I lived in Navi Mumbai, worked at an MNC and worked long hours over the week and met some genuine people I have come to love and respect.

Doesn’t sound like an adventure does it? Maybe because it is an experience and not just an adventure. In the next few days I wish to write out this experience and see if I can convey what I felt to all those of you here. This is #myMumbaiSaga

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