I don’t miss you but whenever I spot the sky here switching hues from blue to gray;
Dancing my heart out in the teeming rain 871 miles away is all my mind can replay.
It’s not like you have cemented your position in the canopy of my ever-racing thoughts,
but even the widest of roads here remind me of your potholes and their never-ending faults.
Do you know the street food here comprises delicacies beyond just your omnipresent pao?
Misal pao, Vada pao, Bhajiya pao, Samosa pao, Pao Bhaji – every inch of my tastebuds misses thou.
Losing myself in the swarm of humanity the moment I set foot in the local trains,
where chattering away in Marathi is the one constant that perpetually remains.
The tantrums thrown by the rickshaw walas followed by getting stuck in a traffic jam at every turn.
The eternal cacophony of horns and vendors that used to annoy me then, now makes me yearn.
Be it the people, the sights, the smells, the tastes, or the many, many sounds,
The absence of it all often negates the presence of what currently surrounds.
Here’s hoping that every possible twist of fate always makes way
eventually for you, and leads me home, to you, to my Bombay.
~
mananya bastia 
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