Faces of Bombay

Walking life's crooked path

If ever it is possible, I will lend a helping hand to those less fortunate than I. 

Whether great or small, their burden is mine, my roof is theirs

I captured this picture with my cell phone while returning home from a taxing day and hectic college schedule. The plight of the old hunchbacked lady was extremely striking as she hobbled along amidst bicyclists and pedestrians.

So few of us realize that we are luckier than what we make ourselves out to be. Rather than bemoaning our misfortune, perhaps we should better the world by lending a helping hand forwards.

However, I would like to end the post on a hopeful note, and focus on her unflinching strength to walk the long roads for her families daily needs. A human being is never helpless until hope fades away, and despite her apparent helplessness, this woman moves ahead on sheer force of will and love. She is one of many in this city of Bombay, land of a thousand different sights and vistas. Home to the rich and abode of those in poverty, yet smiling with an unknown inner strength.

That broken, yet ever hopeful and smiling face you see on the roads is the true face of this glorious city. The land of broken dreams as well as the land of fulfilled destinies.

It is a hard face, one which has to be seen and embraced with strength of will, smartness and love in equal amounts to survive and succeed.

In the city of Bombay, love and misery come hand in hand. Fate and destiny cavort and dance together on the silent rooftops at night as the multitude masses sleep, resting in their peaceful slumber, dreaming of grandeour, while the fates frolic and revel in their own dance of the slowly unravelling future. In the city of Bombay, Shattered Dreams and Burning Hope dance hand in hand, while the city rumbles and shows its true visage to its denizens. The thousand faces of one small city by the shore in this grand universe; where love, hope and death run around, hand in hand.

Peace.