Space
Meghna Maiti
Fog, thicker and thicker, oyster-colored, like another time; drumbeats and sullen durga-ma idols, as if end of something poignant, the end of everything, the beginning of winter……As the Kolkata-October faded away before my eyes, I saw a harsher Mumbai skyline pushing itself upward with a sinking feeling. It was one of those times, when I felt a sharp tinge of pain slither up inside me and remained coiled in a dormant state near my throat. There was an icy, cold feeling everywhere, a sense of emptiness. The only respite was my languorous attempt to cling on to a sense of ‘space’ that Mumbai offered to me and kept me going.
All my life, I have explored the world in terms of space, sound and images and I intend to do more of that. This has, in a sense, helped me tide over the crisis formed by time and distance. Why do we live if we cannot learn and absorb everyday from nature, live intensely and freely, with all our senses alive? While Kolkata somewhat sharpens these dimensions of life, it somehow attaches you with people, places, buildings because it is the city of relationships, love, warmth. I constantly hear voices, feel touch in Kolkata until it takes all my space and leaves me with a yearning to run- far and far away to the wilderness.
It is perhaps the only hope that gives me the courage to leave everything and everyone behind in my hometown Kolkata for quest of the unknown, the exploration of the world with all senses, crossing the boundaries and breaking away from barriers. The space becomes bigger and bigger when I realize the vastness of the Arabian ocean, the detached population of Mumbai, the multitude of people from different communities and walks of life.
Hence, I love my hometown from a distance and do not let it drown me in its vicissitudes of colours, love and immensity. And I feel it strongly in one of those lonely evenings in Mumbai when a sharp spell of rain washes the city and rejuvenates its trees.
ENDS
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