Bombay

The real world is exciting! In two weeks I’ve learnt that

• I’m better with ambiguity than I thought I was
• I have little respect for people who do not grasp the things as I do, as fast as I do
• I have little respect for seniors who are warmly ensconced up in idea-cocoons and refuse to see sense when it is speaking to them
• Perhaps my inclination to analyse everything in mindspace could be put some use finally
• Talking to idiots is as important as talking to people who know it all
• I am not good at drawing models
• My appetite can be much bigger than previously estimated

The multi-level, bulleted documents and box-draings I’ve concocted certainly seem to have affected me deeply. It has been a while, hasn’t it?

For once it’s not that I have nothing to say. It’s nice to be in a new city, watch yourself from the outside seeing new things and meeting new people. Bombay has a lot to learn from, especially for someone like me. I, in my own way, am ensconced in my idea-cocoons. Deep-seated fears, mistrust, judgments, preferences, behavioural tendencies – they’re all put to test here. I’m glad I’ve grown up enough to recognize counter to them in my environment when I see them, and evaluate their relative significance in being allowed to influence my thought. I’m glad that I now give people and places the opportunity to influence me.

Work is a battle everyday – with elements of antagonism, diplomacy, rationality and self-interest involved. It is incredibly frustrating, but indisputably new. And I learn something new everyday.

My first few experiences with the Bombay local train service weren’t pleasant, but they were nowhere as bad as they could’ve been, from what I hear. The ambient noise and population density grows on you eventually, and then you begin to see the merits of time and money saved. Once you’ve seen half of a man on a door of the train with his other half being dragged along, a teeming multitude of people jostling each other for an inch of space, women and children being pushed onto the platform floor – you get a fair idea of the canvas as it is, and it stop mattering that much. I used to wonder why everyone on the train looked glazed – I knew it had something to do with traveling the same route, ‘up-down’, watching and playing out scenes in the platform and in the train with unfailing consistency and the weariness of work and banality. I still watch with glee when people look at me, puzzled over what I see when I look greedily out of the window, or turn my head every time the train stops to watch people get out, and get in. It feels like I’m reminding them of a time when it was a new city to them too.

My all-encompassing paranoia has been dormant for a few days – I hope it stays that way. I hope I have the strength to ignore the things that don’t matter and pay attention to those that do. I hope I have the clarity to see the good in what’s bad and vice versa. And I hope I continue to learn. Every day.