Thane Return

It has been almost a month since I started working in Bombay, and two and a half months since I arrived from Singapore. Faster than the speed of light, or so it seems to me, I got a job (MUCHAS thanks to friends and ex-colleagues for the helping hands!), organised the train pass and the lunch dabba at the office, figured out the optimum train timings and the best route to the platform so as to avoid the riot-like rush on the overhead bridge, and learnt to navigate the by-now-familiar monsoon puddles too. It feels as if I've been here for ever.

Before moving back I wondered how I would take to it. Till now, I've only visited. True, I've plunged into the city with a steadfast sort of fervour every time, but always I knew I would be going back to Singapore. This time, knowing I would not go back, I wasn't sure how I would react.

The result has surprised me. Very obviously, being with family and in a loving and comfortable environment has eased the transition immensely. But I was anticipating at least some degree of adjustment. Perhaps it's because I kept an open mind, was even prepared to be disappointed - but I seem to have slipped right into the groove, heaving train rush and all. Waking up in time and getting out to catch the 9.03 or, if lucky, the 8.56. Crossing the road at just the right moment between opposing streams of traffic. Making sure I reach the office (sometimes I disappoint my sister-in-law by rushing out sans breakfast) and sign the muster before it is taken away and gets red marks in blank spaces against the names of those who didn't make it by the cut-off time. Practising (not yet perfected) the art of managing a handbag when both handbag and hands are pressed tight as tight can be in a crush of bodies and ponytails. Negotiating the old, ultra-steep stairs at the office which, I thought (seeing as the office is on the third floor), would help me lose some of my - generous word! - embonpoint. Unfortunately my colleagues bring in cake with calorific regularity and I have not been able to muster the strength to refuse them. I should just go for a walk every time it happens.

The friendliness of my colleagues and the workplace atmosphere has had a lot to do with my having "fitted in", I'm sure. Working in the Indian milieu is a pleasure I still consciously enjoy - being able to speak Hindi at will, use Indian idioms, and wear comfortable salwar-kameez without being asked why I'm dressed up (in "costume", as some would put it in Singapore). In Singapore, culture is very Westernised. In Bombay, I haven't yet worn my standard-issue grey office-girl skirt - one item which helped make me feel less different in my erstwhile home. Trousers and jeans cross the border freely, though.

A great deal of my fondness for Bombay seems to have to do with trains. In Singapore, the trains run swift and smooth. All you hear is a hum. Very occasionally, only at one or two points, one hears the "rat-tat, tat-tat" of wheels going over joints. It's a sound I love - a sound I miss so much I used to weep when I visited Bombay and travelled by train just to hear it. I still love hearing it, every day of the working week. Another of my train highs is when a fast goes past - either an outstation train going through the station, or two trains passing one another on adjoining tracks. You hear the horn first, approaching, getting louder; and almost before you know it the great creature is passing yours in a wave of rushing metal and blurred bodies in doorways. If there is no joint on the tracks, the sound is a swift zoom-whoosh; when the wheels go over the joints there is my beloved old rat-tat, tat-tat; rat-tat, tat-tat; and then it fades.

Another thing is that on visits, I used to head out by car, with the convenience of a driver so I had no parking worries and could flit around in airconditioned comfort. I can't use the car every day now because my brother needs it, and even if I could, or even if I got my own car, the work commute is just too long. Between Thane and VT, train is best. That's another difference between visiting and living - the fact that the grime and grit is a daily experience and not a temporary touristy reverse-snobbish indulgence. The daily commute has its downs - nonstop pouring rain during the thick of the monsoon, delayed trains, bus breakdowns, occasionally even verbal abuse from male commuters when they can get away with it. I may well change my mind eventually but all this has not yet begun to bother me. Somehow, the goal seems more important than the means.

It's all still new enough that I savour the taste - and the convenience - of breakfast from the corner sandwich-walla near the office, and all but restrain myself from falling with mewls of joy onto the tea that arrives regularly at my desk, a far cry from insipid tea-bag brew in the office pantry. Working in Bombay is very different in several other ways from working in Singapore too, but that, I'm sure, goes for every place. I think with fondness of the dizzying variety of food and drink that Singapore offered, but I don't hanker after it. When I go back (as a visitor, this time) I'm sure I'll fall on all that too, with joy and delight and unseemly wantonness.

Singapore is a land of conveniences, all right, but why don't I miss them? Perhaps it is because I've attuned myself to being "Indian". Singapore - I spent nigh on ten years there - seems like a film I watched and enjoyed. Now I'm out of the cinema hall, dodging the puddles and autorickshaws, and steering clear of the BEST buses. I have not forgotten that you never, ever argue with a BEST bus.

The last time I did all this was when I worked at Lower Parel and stayed as a paying guest or PG ("lodger" to my British friends) at Bandra, and then at Mahim. But that was in the second half of the '90s - 12 years ago. Not only was the commute short, I also worked the odd hours of the newspaper world - starting in the afternoon or evening and ending in the wee hours - so I didn't brave the rush hour. Now, my knees feel far older than the rest of me does, and the rest of me just doesn't feel like doing the night shift any more. Still, I seem to have borne up pretty well so far, fingers crossed.

I had hoped to find a personal source of support by this time, but it hasn't happened yet. I'm hopeful of meeting someone when the time is right, however, and in any event confident enough that even if I don't, it won't be the end of the world.

Often it seems - still - that I've stepped out into space and am navigating new territory with every step. At times I feel - still - that it is dark out there, that the flashlight illuminates only enough for me to take the next few steps. I put my foot forward firmly, however, and as for support - why, my fabulous family is there!