Sunday being the archetypal "lone-wolf" day of the week for me, I had been planning out for an exploratory journey through the streets of South Bombay, for picking up forsaken books from the literature departments and libraries of colleges, which are amassed by street vendors and sold out at ridiculously nominal prices...But then, the rains continued to play spoilsport and I postponed Plan A for the third week in continuation...
But apparently, the early September showers refused to dampen the spirit of a truck(s)-full of Bombayites especially since they have been treating the "sitting-at-home-sipping-hot-coffee" us to live entertainment with the pulsating strikes on the drumskins, boisterous ganpati chants and unrestrained foot works..Meanwhile, my head was treating me to even more frenzy, thanks to the demise of Plan A, especially when the last few pages of my last hard cover book (What good are e-books anyway?!) were fast scrambling for closure..
So I decided to brave the latest attempt of Mr. Rain God and more importantly the unforgiving monsters of the traffic striken highways and ventured into the crammy jungle of book reward points, mauve leather coaches, "cracking the code" enthusiasts and the not-so-helpful can-I-help-yous..In other words, the big bad retail book store...(The last trip didn't turn to be too useful - Reference my earlier post)
A new book by Hornby was in the offing, leading me to half-believe my trip to the store was not that big a waste of time..But then this was before I beheld the dreaded barcoded strip which quoted an astronomical two digit number (Before you take the jugdement calls, you should know this was not in rupee count, but in euros!)...So I continued to wander around aimlessly before stumbling onto the books of a Portugese author called Jose Saramago...I would like to think that the tag of "from the nobel prize laureate" had nothing to do with the fact that I was lured into his books, but then again I got to admit, it was a sight for the sore eyes amidst the Sanders' and the Sheldons..The more powerful reason for eventually picking the book was my quirky interest in trying out authors from distant lands, whose works are hard to unearth in this part of the world, unless they cross the threshold of popularity and their books get translated...
A credit card swipe, a messy subway sandwich and a long walk later, I arrived at the one place the tourists always have on their itinery - the Juhu beach...While I fully knew this was probably the wrongest time to be there (In fact I am actually unsure whether there is a right time), I had been curious to see what the thronging followers of Bombay's favourite God do there...The party was on in full force and so I meandered around to a relatively empty part of the beach ...Now this is definitely not one of the prettiest beaches, but no matter what, the sea never fails to engulf me within its calming arms..Unlike most other beaches, the Juhu beach does not have mounds of sand, from where you can overlook the waves....From where you stand, you are at perfect sea level...Inspite of the reverberating rhythms emanating from the maddening crowd on one side and the relentless bellowing of the horns behind you, it's quite a remarkable feeling to gaze into the dieing tides...And just like that, you manage to block out all that cacophony around you and feel total harmony...Funny, Isn't that the ultimate purpose of life? Heaven knows Juhu is the last place you would expect to find it...
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