Boulevard of Fantasies : Part 3

Hold my head inside your hands
I need someone who understands
I need someone, someone who hears
For you I’ve waited all these years




I lay still. Seated on the Marine Drive bench, my calm posterior eclipsed a turbulent within. I was a prisoner of my own history and the history to-be. Like all other mortal men but Her. And much it grieved my heart to think what man had made of man. The back of my bench read :In memory of Rustomji Pastakia (1898-1973). Reminescence of an era when people outnumbered vehicles. Of an era when life was lived. Saline fragrances from the Arabian Sea nauseated me. Some children were playing on the waterfront.Throwing pebbles.And like them, I wanted to throw a pebble into the sea. But when i picked up the pebble, i saw something which disgusted me. I was confronted by the stone's bear existence and was overwhelmed by a feeling of nausea. Day after day, i lived with a feeling of nausea, feelings of wontings and mounting anxiety. The nausea was becoming constant.It even comes over me in the local cafe, once a place of refuge, well lighted and full of people. But by now, the nausea is not inside me - I am the one who is within it.

"The world of existence, of matters of fact have no connection with the worlds of words, reason, mathematics and logic. Existence is not rational. There is no reason that things are as they are and not otherwise. There is no rational explanation as to why there is any world at all, rather than nothing" - Jean Paul Sartre.



The Queen's Necklace with its adorning billboards and bling bling cqars lay behind me. It was some thrity past six on that early May evening. Time was irrelevant. I was staring at designless people." Aah! A consortium of failures", i said to myself. But Marine Drive, to my mind, had an unrelenting sanguiness to it : a support system of men and women who had fought, lost and had shown wantings to survive. Of men and women silently praying, hiding their faces from the scrutiny of demeaning eyes in victorious cars that speed by.

"A king that is conquered must see strange looks, So bitter a thing is the heart of man"

For her I waited. And there she was.

For you I’d wait till kingdom come
Until my day, my day is done
And say you'll come and set me free
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me







What seemed like an amorous stare was infact her meditation...

Hi Didi! shouted Bobu, sorry Bryan as he tugged at Sarah's ebony coloured hair. Didi you look mad and old standing and staring at the sun like that. Sarah smiled. Sarah laughed. She was old. Eighteen years old. So Bobu, how was your Personality Development class today?, in a tone which wondered how things like Personaluty Development could be taught.

It was so un-cool today. They made us do barrier-breaking. But Why? I don't want to sing, then why should I!.. What the hell... It was so embarassing didi. I had to sing 'Tera Tera Tera Suroor' in front of those forty idiots who clapped after I was done. how fake! Anyway, i was better than the original, chuckled Bobu!

Sarah hit him. She was a part of the Reshamiya Fan Club and a proud one at that.

Bobu was one headstrong dude. At fourteen - he spoke his mind. He was a curious muttering teenager who asked questions to which my mother seeks answers. Sarah had answers though. Answers of her own.

Out of the blue cam Bobu's first question. I evesdropped onto their conversation. This girl with a cream complexion, hazel brown eyes, suave skin and black hair answered. As if she knew it all. As if she was God. God was She.



In your tears and in your blood
In your fire and in your flood
I hear you laugh, I heard you sing
I wouldn’t change a single thing

And the wheels just keep on turning
The drummers begin to drum
I don’t know which way I’m going
I don’t know what I’ve become







P.S - To be continued...
Btw, Bobu's first question is - " Didi why do we, at times, follow our heart and not our head?