2.9

Marine Drive is 2.9 units* away from VT station. (Yes, VT. Let’s just focus on what’s more important.) So, VT station, the confluence of local railway tracks that ply tens of thousands of people every single day. Now that I think about it, I wonder that if a structure could house your thoughts as soon as you’d enter it, VT station would be a riot by simple definition. Infinitesimal thoughts would float inside the heritage structure, whiz by each other, and hang from the carbon dioxide in air to make merry while their owners waited. If these thoughts had colour, like I’m guessing they do in a parallel universe where the magic outweighs the mundane, then VT station would be a carnival of sorts and we the jesters. But that is only in my imagination. Alas!

When people gather, they bring with them not only their selves in flesh but also their minds. The minds that govern what the body does, and the minds that string along their being. In short, when two people meet, their pasts meet too. And sometimes, it’s difficult to separate the two. But that’s not the point of this post and I’m getting carried away. I’d like to jot down a couple of things I saw on my way to my book club meet at Marine Drive that seem of some importance to me:

• The disentanglement of lives when two lovers parted ways
• A new girl wondering where she’d fit in
• Pedestrians being asked (rudely) to wait on the sides so that a convoy could pass by
• A passing convoy that could forgo traffic rules (No, it wasn’t Sachin Tendulkar)
• A girl trying to be understood
• A group making furtive plans to be published
• Boys laughing at nothing (as always)
• In silence, two girls watching the orange sun set
• A girl hoping that this was home

And then there was me…as I watched in a hurry the setting sun. I didn’t take pictures to convince a friend who stays in another city to come visit because Bombay is magical. Unlike other times I was too busy to look at the horizon because there was so much life around. This wasn’t time to contemplate for once. This was time to watch the drama of life unfold as it did. In some ways, I believe that there are answers in chaos.

Strange that I come across a piece of information that says: For an individual with an average height, the point where the sky and earth meet is 2.9 units* away from where he stands. No wonder most of the answers in this city are found at Marine Drive.

That explains it.

P.S:

1. Marine Drive is 2.9 kms from VT station
2. The horizon is 2.9 miles away
3. There is poetry in numbers