Living India

A story about India, the country I'm native to, currently reside in and my homeland...I'm sure there are many thousands of tales out there, unwritten and forgotten, (or even written, read and still forgotten, as is the case with most stories) and I'm sure mine is going to suffer the same fate, but even so...what's there to lose?

I once saw a dead body. I was a child, in a taxi with my parents in pursuit of a new venture. (Or so I thought at the time, it took a while for it to click in that we were moving to a different house, a different country). To continue with the story, I saw what I thought was a dead body, at the side of the road and it left a deep impression on my mind. It may have simply been my imagination since the passers-by did not seem to care, but I've had countless nightmares regarding that scene.

I left Mumbai to see a new place and returned to India after five years. Five years is a lifetime to a child, I remember feeling that it's been years since I left. Dreams starring the dead man frequented my nights, and I wasn't able to sleep very well. I'd never told my parents about these dreams before, and I didn't feel like doing so now. My nightmares ended abruptly when I toured the streets of Old Mumbai at night time. It's a beautiful place to be, with all those attractive items selling there and the buildings along the roads held an especial charm.

My country seems to me forever changing, forever beautiful, in the way that it replaced a terrible childhood memory with a beautiful one, a kind of living entity, like a mother goddess, and returned me something I'd thought I lost here, in this place.