The body

He slowly got up from the bench he was sitting on and took a step back... the zoomed out vision of this creature wasnt so scary afterall he thought. It had pink hair and lare yellow eyes. A funny cucumber shaped nose and no body at all !! The creature was almost floating in the air...

With great fear and a shivering hand, Gopal forwarded his hand to poke this green balloon like creature.

"Go Away....Go Away..." He was yelling as his trembling hand was moving closer to the face.

But the moment his finger touched this gluey sticky gel like face, there was a bursting sound. The green substance that the face was made of, poured out on him like a grand Holi balloon. His entire body got painted with this sticky substance.

But the biggest shock came, when he realised....he was losing his own body....

Gopal's body was walking away...and Gopal was now just a face...

Just like the green face he had seen staring at himself a few minutes ago.

He had to run behind his body....he dint know how.

His face was growing. Like the Big green monster face !

The Face

He blinked a few times, trying to clear his head. Opened his eyes, and saw something big, round and green. "What the .." he thought (or its equivalent). That big round green was ... staring at him ? He looked around, but people hadn't seemed to notice anything different. Now properly awake, he realized with a jolt that the big round green was a .. face . This .. thing , he thought, is certainly not from my village . He recollected stories that had carried down from his great grandfather . About a 'strange creature' that was rumored to exist within the village confines. His heart racing, he wondered if the Lord had finally answered his calls for an adventure ..

Wake Up !!

The scared look on his face and torn and tired look of his clothes made some late-night mumbaikars stare and frown at Gopal. Gopal gave these people a "dont care" look and kept walking ... now in find of a destination.
After almost four hours of walking and not finding anything "different", Gopal started having some scary thoughts. These thoughts surfaced beacuse of his empty stomach fearing he would die of hunger or just faint and hit by a passing car.
In this depression, he kept walking till he tripped on a stone on the road and fell and hit his head. With this jerk he jolted and suddenly opened his eyes. Whoa!! Was this all a dream ? Oh yeah, because what he saw now was railway station. All around him people were moving in all directions and on one side was a train ready to leave . People had come to bid farewell to their loved ones, weeping and some waving in happiness in hope and wish to see them again soon.
Gopal was stunned and did not know what happened.
As his mind cooled and he realised all the walk and hunger and frustration was out of his mind.He wished to do al this in Bombay but had goen nowhere. The journey from his village had only been upto the Bombay station and nowhere else!!

Walk on...

Resolute about getting out of the oh-so-normal world of his, he wanted to see the city differently. He had seen enough of the same old village boy go to Bombay films..live at dharavi.....become a filmstar...overnight stardom....songs around the bushes and the same old story.

He wanted to do something different and also differently. Even if it is for the sake of it.
In half annoyance of the repetitiveness of living, and half excitement of having stepped on the mecca of chaos, he decided to just keep walking till his legs gave up. The clutter, the chaos, and the discipline in madness was like a stimuli to his energy levels.

Just like the Forst Gump...he kept walking....straight down south from the Victoria Terminus where his train had arrived. Up the hand cart, down the garbage heap....over the steps, below the sheds. He just kept walking as if the chaos would turn itself into his boring life again if he stopped.

It wasn’t long before the clouds of pollution lowered themselves over the dusty sunset in the horizon. But how could Gopal stop ?

He kept walking. His mind at peace like never before.
He was almost starting to think that this he had found his ultimate goal in life. To walk in Mumbai. May be its an official profession here he though. Everybody around him seems to be doing that. Some even at a speed faster than him !.

Without a starting, nor a destination. Just walking. Thats Mumbai he thought. About going on. Finding your space. Your goal. The city just lets you be !

The night fell. But Gopal was still walking. It had been 3 hours since he was walking. He had no clue of where he was. But he could feel sand under his feet. Behind him, far away, he read the neon “United service Golf Club”.

Oh my god, his heart stared to palpitate. From what he had read once in college, that was the tip of south Mumbai. Then where was he now ?
His geography was poor but he knew that it meant he was supposed to be in sea. But he wasn’t ! He kept walking. A little slow now.

“you want something new – here you are” he told himself. Where was he...was there perhaps a place that has purposely never been marked on maps ?

A place forbidden ? or a place unsecured ? unexplored even ?....was he still dreaming ?.....He kept walking , a little scared though.

Starry dreams

Gopal was this little boy from a little taluka in a little village in India. Non consequential life, knew everyone there was to know in the village, been there, done that ! He got so tired of seeing the same people day in and day out, eating the same food, getting chased by the same dog, being scolded by the same teachers .. What to do? So he ran. He ran, and in fact he ran away. To this big unknown mythical city of which he and his school buddies had only heard stories. Such ridiculous stories, that he was certain they couldn't possibly be true.

To Bombay..