Diary of a Lost Wanderer

Dear Diary, I fell in love with Mumbai when I first visited it in 1995. Bombay, as it was then known, fascinated me since then.  If you ask me what made me fall in love with this city, I perhaps cannot explain. It wasn't that I was seeing the sea for the first time. It wasn't even the biggest city I had been to till then. Still, there was something so magical about this place. The trip was a short one lasting less than a week but this city now had my heart. Years later, I arrived here all alone on my first solo trip in 2005 and fell in love all over again. I got my first job and was required to come to Mumbai frequently. The local trains, the chaos on the roads, the crowds, the humdrum, the salty smell in the air, the stale air- everything about this city was intoxicating for me. 

Image Source: Unpexels (Cottonbro) “Do you know why is it called making love?” He whispered, pulling the comforter closer.  I don’t remember for how long we had been in that room, on that bed. Lying aimlessly, just feeling each other in silence. I managed to just whimper to denote my curiosity.   “Because that is the moment we create love. We are the closest we could ever be to love, in its purest form. It is sheer magic as we are naked, in every form. Mentally, physically and emotionally before that one person, we love. We know they can hurt us, as much as they want to, in the way they want to. But love gives us that power to trust them, that they won’t.”   “And here I was thinking it is a need. Something you want at that moment and you get it!” 

Image Source: Unsplash (@RobertMetz) Sandstorm- Wounds of the childhood Reshaping my future

Image Source: Unsplash.com I remember the first time I mourned the loss of love was when I was eleven.  For me, dance was love at that time. I had discovered a strange joy as I glided in and out of those movements. Every time I swirled; I could feel my heart soar. Any beat that strained to reach my ears, tempted me to move my body to its tune. I just knew I was born to dance and that is the only thing I wanted to do, all my life.  I had my reasons to believe so and a very simple one at that. It made me happy. That was a reason enough. However, my father thought otherwise. Girls from good families, do not dance. That line was enough to break all those rosy dreams of dancing on a stage. The day my brother was sent to the same dance class which was not good for me, was the day I experienced heartbreak for the first time.  That is the day I mourned the loss of my first love- Dance. 

 ** Trigger Warning: Death, Loss of a loved one, Suicide** Image Source:  Free Plant Image on Unsplash Dakko is no more.  Even as I type this sentence there is a sense of overwhelming disbelief within me. A strange numbness takes over my senses as my heart refuses to believe this ultimate truth staring at my face right now.  For me, she was love. Since the time I was an infant, I had known her as love. She was there when I needed her, pampering me, loving me, mollycoddling me, and bearing with all my tantrums throughout my life. I cannot imagine my three and a half decades of existence without her being there during some of my toughest times. 

Even before we had completely gotten over 2020, 2021 turned out to be a recap of the nightmare 2020 was. And what better way to deal with this chaos than the world of words!  Whenever the noise around gets too much to deal with, I turn to words. I resort to either writing or reading to stay sane. It helps me sail through. Today, I am sharing with you my own book which was born out of chaos. About the Book Laze on the sunny beaches of Australia, drown your worries at the Varanasi Ghats, or get lost in the endless roads of Pangong Lake – this book promises to infect you with an incurable wanderlust. Sprinkled with liberal doses of real-life incidences and stories these pages capture the real magic of a place through its people in the perfect manner Be it the old man climbing the Sydney Eye at the age of 80 or the lonesome kid at Nubra Valley they promise to redefine life like never before. Fasten your seat belts as you embark on a journey of a lifetime with A Lost Wanderer where ...

The moment I hear the question what is love? My answer always is this. Love is.  Those two words hold the entire meaning of love for me. When I was asked to write about my own version of love, my mind instantly ran to the nearest rescue I could find – music. For me, love is music, a song that your heart dances to and a rhythm that has the capacity to capture your soul. Love is the language of the universe, the one in which one soul converses with the other.