Lower Parel in Mumbai isnt exactly a place which brings a lot of smiles to many faces. Right in the heart of Mumbai, this suburb however has shaped 50 years of Mumbai history like no other. Once a place full of mills with lakhs of employees living in and around the same Mills Area, it was touted as the Manchester of India. The mills era and the union battles are long over, but a few mill compounds still exist today sans the mills. Phoenix mills compound perhaps is the best blend of the face of modern India and the old history of Mumbai from before our independence. Today I was at the office of ICICI Bank just next to Lower Parel railway station. In a place called “Mafatlal Mills Compound”.
Its been quite rainy since morning today. Despite it, I had braved the trip without an Umbrella. My meetings got over around 6:30 pm. I packed myself to go back to the Prabhadevi office, get in to my car and get home. It was drizzling lightly when I came out and it was kinda fun to face the very light drizzle. Usually it does not require an umbrella.
Outside the compound it was mayhem and chaos. I realized that 7:00 PM in the evening on a weekday outside Lower Parel is not a very bright idea. There was a huge crowd of people making their way through extremely crammed and narrow streets. The footpaths taken over by shops. None of the Taxi wallas were prepared to take me to Prabhadevi.
Then it happened, the heavens opened its heart and it poured. Like most others I took refuge under the temporary blue-black tarpaulin canopy put up by shops on the footpath. It poured mighty heavy for a very long time. Enough to create tiny riverlets running all along the footpath and the street which only increased the traffic jam.
Around 45 minutes of waiting did not see the rain going away anywhere. Like most others I was standing there at the shop very stressed, very tired and very anxious to just have the rains stop, to get a taxi and get out of this very filthy, noisy and crammed place.
It was then all of a sudden that a wonderful thought struck me – What if I just take a walk in the rain. Not like every one else who were hiding under an umbrella, jumping over water streams, dodging water splashes and scurrying through the crowded streets like rats. I wanted to take a mighty lion walk right not by the corners and side of the road – but out in the open.
I put a step outside to realize that I had my Lee Coopers on, which might not take the rain and the water so very merrily. What happened next was unconscious. Instinctively I just stepped out with a mighty stride . As soon as I did, the downpour of rain overwhelmed me. While I was safe and dry under the plastic canopy, here there was no one between me and the clouds.
It felt very embarrassing as well as silly just stepping out, as I saw so many people waiting anxiously under the shops watch me suddenly step out like this. And I continued walking on….
It felt very uncomfortable, shameful and utterly foolish to realize that all eyes were on me; all perhaps wondering what a finely dressed sensible looking guy was doing taking a leisurely stroll out in the rain ?
At first I tried to end it all by frantically looking for a taxi (in vain). I asked, shouted and chased a couple of them and all refused. I was feeling like I was a fool standing there. All I could hear was screeching noises of the vehicles on the jam packed road honking away, the rain drops hitting my face very hard, the water currents getting in to my shoes and people staring at me. It was a moment of extreme distress and irritation; my mind cursing me all the while.
It was then, that I let go of all pretense. As Eckhart Tolle says, be in the Now – enjoy the moment. I took a deep breath. I let go of all thoughts in my mind which shouted “Reach home”, “Bad rain”, “people are staring”, “Its late”, “You wont get a taxi”, “Get back in the dry”. I just let them all go. My discomfort vanished. I stopped noticing people watching me. I stopped looking around for taxis in an exasperated and frantic way.
It was as if time slowed down and I could now hear the wonderful sound of the rain, a faint sound of the wind and leaves restlessly being shaken by the rain and the wind. The hard rain felt soft as the drops touched my face. I watched the riverlets flowing down the road, mapping their own way, in wonderful knotty shapes as they were flowing away. I walked on for nearly 40 minutes, as I passed by people of all ages standing under an umbrella anxiously hailing cabs; very clearly so stressed out. I walked past Lower Parel Station and on to the bridge which goes down it. And it rained on. Time had indeed slowed down.
I felt like a mighty lion strolling down in the forest carving out his own path.
When I was enjoying all of this, an empty cab caught my attention. I gently asked him “Prabhadevi Chaloge” ?
He said “Chaliye”.
Thus ended the walk; a most wonderful one at that; in perhaps what I was earlier referring to as ” a dirty, filthy, polluted, crammed and noisy place”.
