Bombay Meri Jaan!

Dear One,

It's 6.30 a.m in the morning and I am woken up by the blaring bursts of busy vehicles, in a mad rush to reach their points of destination. Welcome to Bombay! - The city that never sleeps, and also, the city that doesn't allow anyone to sleep peacefully either. (I prefer calling it Bombay, for nostalgic reasons. You are free to interpret it as Mumbai!)

My humble home is bang adjacent to the Expressway, and it's an assorted predicament of sorts. Vehicles small or big make it a point to blare their deafening horns 24/7, as if to tell me the world has found it's rightful expression; and now, it's high time I find mine.

The truth about Bombay, was beautifully sung by Mohd. Rafi, in the 1956 song - 'Bombay Meri Jaan'. It seems, the situation, way back in 1956, was not unlike what we face today; the same old traffic and the same old insanity to achieve something of everything. Is this what you call ambition? To gain everything; only to lose your peace of mind.

When I sit back and watch the usual swarm of people go about doing their "responsibilities", I feel so  saddened by the incessant madness to achieve something at the cost of losing everything. We seem to have everything under control, yet one thing runs common in all of us - we don't have time. We are abject workaholics, who spend their prime time in working and the other half in thinking about work. What a blessed waste of time?

We are leading a life that's leading us no where at all. We are always pretending to be busy and rarely manage to come up with a genuine smile of content - all we care is for more and a bit some more. Happiness, as someone rightly observed, is not in having all that you want, but it's in wanting what you already have. We lose so many invaluable moments in this bargain. We miss out on the simplest pleasures like, seeing our children grow or favorably being there with our aged parents and gift them the greatest gift money can't buy - Love. But, we are so involved with ourselves, that everything else can afford to wait. What a misguided life this can be?

I have often heard people say; that whatever they are doing is for someone or the other and not for themselves. That's the greatest lie we end up telling ourselves. At the end of the day, you are your own sweet sustenance. You eat and sleep for yourself, no one does that for you. Likewise, you live for yourself and no one else can do it for you or you for someone else. The fact of the matter is, most of us don't know what we really want from our life. Earning money is not the primary goal. Money is just the means to get there. But we become so deluded with the means, that we start believing it to be the end itself.

Bombay is bleeding. It want's rest from the humdrum of such a fast monotonous life. You too are inadvertently  bleeding. You need to slow down and savor life from time to time. Take a break, explore something new. Don't let your work get in your way of happiness, or don't misunderstand work for real happiness. Stop taking yourself seriously and stop identifying yourself with the titles you hold; that of an AVP or a CEO or a MBA or some hot-shot celebrity. Just be your simple self and enjoy. Spend some time in blissful silence and you will start appreciating the noise around, without any regret.

I so wanted to get out of this maddening city, but then I realized, life is what you make; the city you stay doesn't really matter. The measure of success should not be solely in your achievements, but in the radiance of your warm contented smile and the joy it brings to others.

Don't let the burdens of your responsibilities take the best of you. We all know, how unpredictable life can be. See to it, you don't end up frowning when all you wanted to do, was smile.

Peace in oneself. Peace in the world.