Thursday's Story

The sky has been grey since we arrived, making the sea grey as well.  But, on Thursday, the sun came out and painted a tinge of blue in the sky, and the sky delivered some of that color to the sea.  I had the morning and so I took my camera for a walk.

As my camera and I watched the water from across the road, a woman stopped to chat and to tell me that this particular day was Raksha Bandhan, the full moon day of the Hindu month of Shravan, a holy month.  She explained that this is a particularly auspicious day because it signals the end of the monsoon and the weather is usually clear and bright.  Raksha Bandhan is a celebration of the bond between brothers and sisters, where women tie a red thread called a rakhi around the wrist of their brother and pray for their well being while the brothers promise to care for their sisters.  She shared a legend that I also found on wikipedia:

When Alexander the Great invaded India in 326 BCE, Roxana (or Roshanak, his wife) sent a sacred thread to Porus, asking him not to harm her husband in battle. In accordance with tradition, Porus, the king of Kaikeya kingdom, gave full respect to the rakhi. On the battlefield, when Porus was about to deliver a final blow to Alexander, he saw the rakhi on his own wrist and restrained himself from attacking Alexander personally.

Before she left, she told me where she lived and asked me to stop in for tea soon.  She also told me where her daughter works, in a small library and community center tucked into the hill above us, and suggested I visit her as well.   Mumbai abounds with hidden places doing exciting things with fashion or tea or tradition or theater or food.

I find so much beauty in this city - in the waves of the sea, the brightly colored clothes, the red lakhis on men's wrists last week, the fresh produce piled on the street, the antique buses and rickshaws, and the warmth of the people.  Locals regularly stop to chat, asking where we are from and finding connections through past cities or current neighborhood or a shared school.  Mumbai is a mass of urban chaos, to be sure.  Garbage covers the beach when the tide goes out and rats turn up dead on the street after strong rains.  But this chaos hardly masks the charm and beauty on display.  Children selling peacock feathers on Linking Road captured this dissonance perfectly.  I did not photograph them because I chose not to buy their feathers, so you must use your imagination.  These children, near the age of my children, walked along one of the city's prime shopping roads, dodging rickshaws and goats as cars sped past.  They should not have been braving traffic to sell peacock feathers while my children go to school.  There is nothing romantic about their poverty.  But the fact remains that these laughing children, in their colorful clothes, with their tall and vibrant feathers, were beautiful.