The 24th of October, 1995.
Just yesterday.
The Bhagalpur-Kurla Express logs in to Kurla station on the day of the last total solar eclipse of the (20th) century and deposits me into Bombay as part of the engineering course technical tour.
That is the time, starting with all that Bombay had to offer to a young student tourist, when a whole new world of places, of people, of experiences opened up.
More significantly, it opened up the mind.
Expanded the notions of possibility.
It was like the whiff of fresh air you experience when you watch this song from the (then) blockbuster Bollywood movie, shot at Kurla station, with a board christening it Vasco da Gama (Goa station).
Which other place could have helped me embark on that journey better than Bombay.
Today, as i spend my first relaxed evening in Bombay after decades, i can't but help reflect on the years since that day my train came to Kurla.
The journey from then on has involved a host of people, places and experiences.
Has almost changed me almost completely as a person.
From a shy introvert. From a theoretical idealist. From being judgmental. From a finicky traveler. From being someone with fixated notions.
Seems like big stuff.
Yet, there was nothing exceptional which had happened in that October 1995 trip to Bombay. I went to the Gateway of India. Did a catamaran tour. Went to Taj Mahal Hotel and had the most expensive coffee of my life at Rs. 55. Went to the museum. To the boot house. Toured the aquarium. Juhu. Purchased my first (and last) Nike shoe for Rs 125 at Fashion street (its original, the shopkeeper had told me...i still have no reason to disbelieve). Extensively traveled on the bombay local trains. In doing all that, though, there was a never experienced feeling of being liberated. Of being free. Sans everything. Of having a certain sense of audaciousness. Which, probably, led me to dropping that game changing picture postcard* from a letter-box close to Flora Fountain.
From then on, action has been quite non stop: across countries, across hemi-speheres.
Today, after so many years, and on my nth visit to Bombay, watching all the buzz and energy of its inhabitants around me (despite the numerous challenges that dog them) , i once again get that compelling feeling of possibility. That anything can happen. That lots can be done. That the world continues to be a nice place, inhabited by nice people.
And there is once again an empty canvas in front of me.
I feel good.
