The weather has been wonky here in Mumbai the last few days - stormy skies and rains show up as suddenly as the sun does! And yet, once Ganpati has left to go back home the rains do too. I’m not a fan of the loudspeakers the pandhals blast to boast of themselves, but modaks are a blessing. I can be a bit of a snob that way, but the only correct modaks are ukdiche modak - steamed modaks. A few more days until I inhale the sweet jaggery and coconut parcels into my stomach.
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Josh and I had the longest conversation last week about how to love a city when you don’t love it. He insists that there are ways to love Mumbai even though we know we don’t want to be here forever. I call it a toxic relationship, because why would you insist on learning to love something you don’t? It sounds like advice people give the bride in an arranged marriage - ‘as time goes by, you’ll learn to love him’. Josh says that you just have to find the pockets of the city that you love and have experiences that turn into great memories. Perhaps the issue is that I don’t feel comfortable in this new corner of the city that we are calling home. Thane has always been my home and I know the city very well. But in Berlin, I made it my home by knowing all the metro lines and cycling to places. Eventually, I had frequent haunts. The only place I haunt now is our home, and only one of the cafe owners nearby knows who I am.
I’m like a grumpy child, refusing to learn the city - its routes, its cafes, its bookstores, its local train ka schedule. There’s so much Mumbai has to offer but I whine and kick my legs, annoyed at the loudness and dirtiness and smells.
And yet, I think I found one of those memories to love that Josh was talking about.
This is the joint space of Studio Cloud Child & Silly Mud Studio, and last weekend they hosted a live art and music experience. For an hour or so, we watched Nandan paint on a massive canvas while Shree played ambient music - the common theme of Spark weaving their actions together. After the small interval, we were given the option of writing or doodling someone on the same theme along with the artists themselves.
And so I did - picking up notes, observing colours, watching the lanterns swing slowly all whilst sitting cross-legged in the yellow warmth that the setting sun and lamps filled the room with. You’d think an experience such as this was boring but it was far from it. It felt as if time had slowed down in the room. The attention of everyone in the audience was allowed to wander anywhere in the room including the strokes of oil pastels and paint brushes, or licks and chords on the guitar string. No one spoke. It got me thinking about my own Spark - did it exist? what did it look, sound, feel like? had it changed?
So I wrote about it on one side of the paper, and drew the moment on the other:
The fire that used to burn within me is quiet now. In embers perhaps, glowing softly, warming my hands that seek steadiness. They flare into a bright orange when I breathe some life into them before returning to their dull deep red, throbbing. I don't rage for my place anymore, not as vigorously. I look for it with deep breaths, asking my ripples to remain ripples. Crashing waves serve us no more. The embers sit in a paper lantern perhaps, filling it with a glow that lights up a room full of my people. It sways - tethered to the ceiling with a string - flowing with the breeze. Afloat but grounded. It's in the fragments of fairy lights draped lazily on the wall, twinkling like fireflies connected by the silk thread of my persistence.
My Spark has changed after all then I guess, and in experiences like this I feel inspired. Not a raging fire of ambition, but like a warm fire that has been stoked to keep it alive and well. But I’d love to ask the same question: What does your spark look, sound, feel like?
And have you done anything recently to stoke it?
Vedi’s Postcard Club!
The Postcard Club is something I started to stoke my spark too. It combines my love for art, sending postcards, and writing personalised messages. You receive affordable original art, dcevelop a low-effort hobby for collecting postcards and hopefully encourage you to send out your own!
Every month, you will receive a postcard dedicated to you with artwork I make specially for the club's members. The monthly subscription is USD 3 = approximately INR 250.
Wishing you a week full of modaks,
Vedi
Hey Big Sis!
If you're not fond of navigating the town on your own and need guidance? This living human Mumbai Transport Directory is there for you!