He stood on the ledge overlooking the breakers and looked at the sky above.
It was a beautiful evening made even more beautiful by the fact that it was the beginning of a new life for him...
He'd been struggling for the past 3 months with a lot of things in life. And today, all that was about to change.All that suffering was about to end forever.He closed his eyes, feeling the cool breeze whip at his face.
He smiled and opened his arms wide.He could almost feel the embrace of hope that he had been carrying with him all these days.
"My first song", he thought. "All these years. All these years of hard work, and its finally here...".
As a struggling singer, he'd spent so many sleepless nights on this very ledge.Speaking to the sea.Crying his heart out when he couldn't take it anymore.
Today, his dream had come true.His first recording had just ended and the director's words rumbled loudly in his ears,"Dude, you are gonna rock this nation...".
He felt the temperature fall suddenly. The first drop of rain came rushing to his parched eyes. As he heard the faint strains of his song flow through his head, he finally felt free.This was it.His moment.

"Oye, kya kar rahai? baarish mein kyu khada hai?" asked the policeman with a mixture of suspicion that was hard to miss.
"Bheeg raha hu, sirji." He said with a smile. "Main star banne ja raha hu. Pata nahi shayad baadme kabhi aisa mauka mile na mile....."

His heart was beating wildly out of control and he knew there was nothing he could do about it.
He had waited, 28 long years for this day. God, he thought, has kept me alive just for this.

His forehead was burning hot, feverish with excitement. His eyes were unblinking, focussed and completely attuned to his target.
He had the feeling that there were a hundred horses in his stomach,racing for their life and he had the strangest feeling that he was enjoying it all the same.Muscles tensed, bunched,knotted and stretched,like bands of steel,he knew this couldn't go on for long. In a few moments, he knew it would all end.

He was a qualified doctor, and a good one. But today, all that had been forgotten.The hundreds of people awaiting him at the clinic would have to wait another day for him.This was far too important for such trivial matters as life and death.

And slowly, as the moment neared, he could feel the rest of his senses slipping away, oozing slowly from his body as only his sight remained.
He realised he was holding his breath. The man on the screen in from of him finally stepped forward and hit the ball out of the ground off the final ball.A SIX!!!
This was it!! India had won the World Cup!!!
He let his breath whoosh out of him.And he screamed.And screamed.

"Wake up Sid!!! what the hell is the matter with you??" he heard.

And he blinked.Suddenly, the colors changed.He was blinking furiously at his bedroom ceiling.
"Whew!!!" he said out loud.
"Mom, don't worry. It was just a dream.A dream that may never come true....."

Laughter club

There were gaping holes on both sides of him. There was also something about that emptiness that haunted him too badly to want to continue with his daily routine.
Mr Singh and Mr Malhotra.Both victims of age.And disease.And he knew it was not long before he too would walk the same path.
And yet, today here he was, at the foot of his building, laughing his guts out.Loudly.
"Fantasy Laughter club", he thought. "What a name! Fantastic.All I need is a pin and a name tag."

He looked around with quiet amusement.A pot-bellied gujju fellow he barely knew,who had just joined the club a few days back was laughing out the loudest.A few ladies trying hard to match the volume with their shrill laughter, but only managing to add to the general cacophony.
A hundred windows opened out to them, each cursing the club for the club's early morning incursion into their precious hours of sleep.And a few kids rushing around,on cycles, on skates, on rubber shoes,each pushed by an inner need to....
To what exactly?He didn't know.But he wished he did.

"Mr Purushottam, what's the matter? Why aren't you laughing?" asked the young man at the head of the group.
"I'm not happy", came the reply.And it surprised him.He didn't know he was capable of such lucidity. "None of us are.We only laugh because it beats stress."

And finally, it hit him. His laughter had now become part of his daily monotony.

A day in the life of Mumbai

I look out of my window on a dark and gloomy Friday evening, and it strikes me as amazing, how so suddenly the weather changes right in front of our eyes, and yet we do not notice it.

The evenings, they have always been theatrical, the riot of colors, the blue vistas and the oranges and grays, each competing for our attention, but sadly, none succeeding.
One day, the evening ends at seven, all happy and aglow, and over the next few days, it’s as if they are in a hurry to spread out the blue blankets. Six o’clock suddenly seems like seven used to, and seven, well, seven as always.

The evening walkers, in their daily attire, are amused at the lack of light, but nevertheless, carry on in their mission to cover their daily distances as usual. The kids are unhappy, for their hours of delight are woefully cut down, and for no fault of theirs too. The rains, as is usual during such days, bring with it a faint smell of melancholic sadness, as if nature herself rues the haziness, but is helpless against it. We all feel it in our bones, that moment when we wish we could all have spent a more profitable today in Switzerland or other places north.

But Mumbai in its inevitable madness never ceases to amaze me either. As has been said a thousand times before me, the city never sleeps. The trains, they rumble on, regardless of the rain and the light, or the lack thereof. The buses continue to hog the road and fight with rickshaws for supremacy, putting countless commuters through their daily grind.
And really, come to think of it, we all feel a bit let down if there is no harassment, no real incident that marks out the Mumbai city life for what it is. What is it with us? No one knows. It’s part of the mystery that is Mumbai. It is part of our existence, part of the mark on our foreheads that tells the devil leave them be, they have already gone through hell.

And when all is said and done, in the evenings, we all travel the same roads that lead to home, after what is a normal day for us, with another battle on our hands.
The roads(At least I assume that’s what they are called these days) continue to win the pockmarks contest hands down, and everybody gets home at the end of another harrowing day, too tired to notice that the weather has changed again.