There was a dust storm outside office and I was bang in the middle of it.. carrying a pile of books from office.. and a kilogram of litchis.. But the detached, unchartered storm didn't feel unsafe at all. I felt like rushing to take an auto, but I realised I really enjoy being in the midst of chaos, but my kind of controlled chaos. It felt great, braving the storm, taking a subway and walking to the metro station when I could've easily taken an auto, even though it was barely a risk. Just about a five minute walk.. I felt a small pang within me, of having experienced something new, a cheap, tiny thrill. While the world watched it from behind their glass doors and windows with drinks in their hands, I was walking with it, at times against it.
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A new metro line has finally opened and it allows me a direct walk to my house from the metro gate. I took the line today and traversed what felt like a suspended elongated elastic tube like metro station today.
This was Hauz Khas metro station. I've been frequenting it for as long as I remember using the Delhi metros. To go to my aunts' places, to go to Connaught Place, to get to Hauz Khas village, negotiating the city with a best friend, a cousin, a boyfriend, another best friend, a friend, strangers... to this place and that.. this small negligible, little used metro station is my stomping ground, I'd have no second thoughts about that.
To see i stretched out like that in front of. It felt like a portal, which it is. Isn't it? Every door that way is a portal. Leading us to and from different space time continuums contained in small people like us, you and me. Pockets of mouldy life being breathed into each day. Each breath, making more sense with these meaningless rides, trying to make sense, inhale sense, exhale nonsense.
Anyhow. So watching this stretch in front of me was bulbous. It made me feel things. It felt like an airport's international terminal. I felt like I was walking so much to only take the metro that would drop me right outside my house. Well, almost outside my house. A walk so lengthy, also because I carried a little over a kg of litchis in my bag and a water bottle and about a dozen books and a few printouts and like a ton of everyday luggage.
Walking, still wasn't tiring at all. And might I add that the cool breeze added to the experience. My hair sticky, rusty with the dust and leaves and general smut logged in the knots. My feet sliding on the newly laid floor. As I walked farther, figuring my way to the metro that'd take me home, lesser people populated my way. It was an amusing experience. Like listening to the flute on a balmy sunny winter noon. Less people, clean platforms, no shovels, no pushes, gashes, stares, glances.
When the metro arrived, I slid my way in. Kept my luggage on an empty seat next to me and just soaked in the air of near empty metro compartments on a weekday @8:45pm. The joy. Oh that joy. <note to self: must edit this a lot before pushing publish>
Anyhow, the walk from the metro compartment's door to the metro gate was.. how do I put it? Amusing! "This is a maze!" I muttered to myself, then quickly deleted the space mentally and said "This is amaze!"
<I quite like my jokes. This needs editing!>
The walk, oh how much I love walking! If only I could even sleep with my walking shoes on. If only. As I took the tubes and underground subways to cross the road, the lovely musty smell of near rains stroked my face that was all grimy and oily. It felt like home. I finally had a home I could take a tube to. No auto, no nothing. A walk here and there, and just the tube!
Between the metro station gate and my house, I tried to even count steps. I have small feet, hence baby steps. In seconds, it came to about 536 seconds of walks.. which if multiplied by about 1.5 would give me the exact number of steps I'd have walked. Something close to 800. And coming home to no one. No tv, no laptop, just a bag full of books and litchis. What more does one want? Oh I want a lot more, but yeah whatever this would do for now. Litchis, books, Anees Salim's Town by the sea and some passionate discussions about movies and tv shows and the smell of near rains. That, with some cool glucoseD water and chilled mango to dig into, would do. Along with perhaps maybe a flatmate, who shares my passion for cinema and tv and with whom there's gonna be a lot of talking on Sanju. And as always the desire to write down every waking moment of my life into words, either on a screen as tiny as my phone or on atm receipts or notebooks or newspapers using a broken pencil or a ball pen or a unibal or a pilot pen. Write....
To writing....