A journey from Goregaon to Mount Mary Church, Bandstand Aseem N wrote this at 10:15 pm • Filed under I, Me and Myself •

Sometimes you have a lot of frustration and anger inside you… so how do you vent it out? Anger management? Count 1 to 100 and back? Or you prefer to go back to your A…B…C…D…??? Well I have found a way that works for me. Just keep walking, whatever the time, whatever the place… Haha.

Yesterday night went for a late night show of One Two Three (pathetic movie!). Paid 200 bucks for a seat at Cinemax, Andheri. And that’s why the frustration! :p Or was it that April Fool prank that I got fooled by and I couldn’t take it? Haha. Or maybe it was something else! For whatever it was, I didn’t know how to control the angry me. Angry with something, angry with someone. So I did what I felt was right to do at that moment. At 2:00 am when I reached back home, I emptied my wallet (credit card, debit cards, too much cash, etc :p) while kept a few bucks and an ID proof with me and left home. Left to go where? Don’t know. As I walked away, something inside told me that I could go on and on. And there was nothing that could stop me. I didn’t want to. Even if I could.

Walking speedily and talking to myself in a way that I never did, I was in a hurry to go somewhere. Again Where? Again I didnt know. My thick red jacket made me realise that the night wasn’t cold enough. I wished I could have gone back to leave it home. But then would I come back here again to continue doing what I chose to do? Was I done with the frustration of the crappy movie? Or the April Fool prank that fooled me? Was I done with whatever it was? :p. No. So I continued to walk out of the residential area which had countless garbage bins and dogs… yea a lot of dogs. Some would only chase wagons. Some followed pedestrians like me. And some had specifically caught fancy for my red jacket which i wanted to leave back home. So I had to hurry before they got mad at me. Luckily no dog did.

Slowly I realized that it was going to be good fun. Fun to see Mumbai at this hour at night. Still pretty much awake and hustling. The highways were busy. As good as the ones at peak hours in Goa. This is the only time that you could drive or ride on Mumbai roads as though it wasn’t Mumbai ever. So all those vehicle owners who drove by made sure that they zoomed with full throttle. And you had to be more than cautious walking at the sides of the road, trying to figure out your own narrow pedestrian path. Alongside there were rickshaws parked with rick riders sleeping in. Some who were awake even offered to take me to my destination. If at all I knew where I wanted to go!

I crossed a couple of flyovers… walking in my own stride. Hoping that I don’t get looted or something. I won’t say that it would have been ok, just because I chose to do so. But the risk was worth the experience I was having. Yea damn, I never walked out of home at 2:00 AM! It was already 30 minutes passed 3 and I had come quite far away from the place I live, Goregaon East. Its then that I remembered that I had been a couple of times to a nice church at Bandstand, Bandra. I knew the way and I knew that I could get there all alone by walking the distance up. I felt some sudden energy in me that could take me all the way there. May be it would take all night of walking. I was ready. So I continued the journey. But now with a destination in mind.

Living on the edge…

This is one place I always found scary in the light of the day. And at this hour it looked all the more. Living on the edge. Absolutely. Small little houses built on the edges of a drained and cut off cliff, how do people manage to live there? What if you just slipped? There is anyway not much space to walk once you step out of your door. Right down the cliff was a marshy area filled with garbage and big healthy rats. Yea in Mumbai, only people starve not rats. My Nokia N73 isn’t great at taking night snaps. So that’s why you see the photo the way it is. I don’t need to tell that I am bad at photography too.

Well not too far away…

Soon I realized I wasn’t far from my destination. The green neon board hanging above my head did tell me that Bandra was just 9kms away. Good. Though I really had no clue of how much the whole distance anyway was. But 9kms looked like within reach. Though I did feel a little tired and dehydrated by now. So I took my first small rest break. I sat on the sidewalls of a flyover listening to songs… Clicking some snaps of the moon, buildings with glowing sign boards, people who had set out early morning… and also of those who didn’t have a place of their own.

Moon and Mumbai

From one of the flyovers

Rehne ko ghar nahi… Saara jahan humara!

Could this guy really afford to care if a speeding car ran over him tonight? So would it be his fault if that had happened? Did he have an option anyway? And well, did he as many others sleeping on the roadside barely being able to cover themselves from the wind and cold breeze suddenly get me all more upset? I said it to myself a few times to feel better… Yeh hai Mumbai meri jaan! Indifference! I moved ahead wondering if I would have thought of all this on any other day if it wasn’t for tonight that I had decided not to sleep in my cozy house…

There were police patrolling the area… giving me the “What the heck are you doing here at this hour?” look. But didn’t bother to stop by and ask me. While I simply kept walking ahead. I assumed that they see many like me everyday. Reached Santa Cruz by around 5.00 am I guess. And the entire sweet walk that I was having until now started to turn sour. There you go…threatening violent dogs who weren’t ready at all to leave me in peace. They were all ready exhibiting their knife sharp long canines ready to bite off my flesh. With a number of them surrounding me… for a moment I thought this was the end of my little journey. At this time, I believe I missed my bike much more than anything else ever… Also my legs had started hurting and I knew I couldn’t run faster than these super athletic dogs. Soon many more joined the dog party! I started walking briskly. But the dogs didn’t give up. One stood there clenching his teeth, staring right into my eyes… as though suggesting that he would get me any moment now. Well how can he allow any stranger (or should I say a Non-Mumbaikar?) to walk on his Mumbai streets???!!! Just probably half a furlong ahead was a hoarding with Raj Thackeray’s mammoth sized photo. I just wondered if there was some connection. I couldn’t afford to wonder for long. Nor could I admire the flights flying right above my head which I used to as a kid. The only thing that I had on my mind was how the hell do I deal with these dogs?! Not to forget to also deal with the speeding cars that wouldn’t allow me to cross the lanes. But I am glad that I somehow managed to. And the dogs I believe could not do the Speed-Distance-Time calculations to get them to the other side of the road. They could only stare and bark at me while I did that. Wohoo! Well I was just keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t encounter more of such sinister SantaCruzian dogs this side I was walking on. Luckily I didn’t.

The rest of the journey was pretty smooth. Specially the dogs that I found. Most of them sweet, innocent, sleepy, sane dogs :-p. Oh I love them! Soon there were guys jogging beside me, people standing in long queues for water, buses plying by… and the darkness was all out and over. I had lost the count of the flyovers I had crossed till now. It was feeling all so good. Except for the obvious fact that my legs had almost given up. So I walked upto a general store and bought a bottle of Gatorade to replenish the lost fluids… :). I hadn’t been much to Bandstand. So it took a little time figuring out the way. But when I reached there it was pretty refreshing. It was 7:00 am now. With everything coming my way, I was simply feeling even better. Had to walk up a little road to finally get to my destination… Mount Mary Church. Needless to say of how beautiful it was from the outside and so very peaceful and serene when you walked in.

Mission Accomplished!

Mount Mary Church, Bandstand, Bandra

Prayed there for a while and then left back with a rick. Didn’t have the patience (if at all the energy) to walk back the 20kms distance I had traveled all night. Haha. But it felt like achieving some Olympic feat. Got back home, bought milk, eggs and brown bread for breakfast, as if was just another day. And it very much was. Maybe even better…

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