When I have a lot on my mind I get on a B.E.S.T bus late at night and stay on it until the end of the line, then get out and ride it all the way back.
Being in transit gives me the illusion of a suspension of time.
While on the bus, I find solace in its uneven movement.
I look out into the Bombay night and its soft glimmer and am reminded just how restorative, how indispensable beauty is.
I eavesdrop on conversations, which tend to cast my own bright life in a different, more forgiving speckled light. My problems suddenly look a bit softer, less troublesome.
I glance at my books and think, think, and sit with my legs up in an ambulatory setting with an ever-changing view where I am not interrupted.
The resulting, partially accidental proclivity of my mind finally settles me.
Like a mother soothing her child with a gentle soft song.
I am weary of platitudes. I don’t need reminders of the value of life or the importance of love or our lack of control or how change must be embraced.
I already know. I just already know.
I don’t have to be anyone here, especially someone who I am not.
I play that role all day.
My role on this bus is that of an anonymous, slightly disheveled, young boy sitting with a pack of books on his lap, without any known destination.
I am no one’s friend, no one’s coworker or lover or son or brother or tenant.
I need to do nothing.
On this late night, as the pace of this city slowly comes to a crawl, I am no one here, just the weak, see-through reflection on someone’s large, dark window pane.
The high pitched, possibly grating, multi-language conversation another overhears, perhaps casting his own life in a different light.
I have the most beautiful city in the world unfolding — displaying itself to me, and it’s just a bit beyond my reach because, in reality, I am somewhere else right now.
Somewhere that exists only in the person I used to be.
