After a couple of weeks of the horrors that visited my city (floods, a riot and then terrible terrorism), I’m about ready to call it quits and leave this city that I love. Bombay has always been the city I call home, wherever I may live in the world. I’ve been able to identify a Bombaywallah just from his attitude and personality..and it’s just that attitude and personality I’ve loved. The brash, inventive, exciting, purposeful energy that drives people in this great city is just what gives me the energy and motivation to live in what is otherwise a very stressful urban environment.The bomb blasts that ripped through trains in my city have done what the riots in 1992 and the blasts of 1993 haven’t been able to do to me. Perhaps I was young then and just didn’t understand the significance of just waht was happeneing. All of a sudden, in 2006, at age 29, I’m confronted by the fact that I may just never come back home one night..or have a member of my family just vanish from this earth one evening. And that scares me. Scares me enough to want to leave and move somewhere. I talked about this with Irshad the day after the blasts. He’s young, ambitious and Bombay is JUST where someone like him should live and prosper. And even he had doubts about whether this is where he’d want to settle down, raise a family and get older.

I have similar doubts. I suppose I’ve always had them even while I was planning on coming back here from Boston. Now it’s just crystallizing into a plan. This is NOT where I want to grow older.I don’t see Bombay as somewhere I can have my white picket fence, 2.3 children and black lab. Heck, I don’t see Bombay as somewhere I can have a great date - let alone a relationship! “If you change yourself, then the terrorists would have won” is what we hear every second person saying. But you know what? I’m scared of dying. There’s tons of things I want to do, want to accomplish. Where’s my magnum opus? Where’s my work of art? Where’s the kids I want to bring into my family? Where’s the man I want to spend the rest of my life with? I may just not come home tommorrow if the terrorists have their way. And that scares me.

Suddenly, a quiet life in an American suburb doesn’t look so bad. Suddenly ,my dreams of living in Israel for a year look untenable. I just want to feel safe. I just want my loved ones - family and friends to be safe as well. Since we can’t be the change we wish to see, I don’t see any other option but to leave. Perhaps then the concerned authorities will realize they need to do something to prevent their best and brightest from fleeing. Why should I agree to live in a (let’s be honest here - all romanticizing aside) crumbling city that is rift with communal and economic stresses? Why should i have to wade through knee-deep water every time it rains? Why should I be afraid to ride public transport?

Frankly, I’m just too old to deal with this shit anymore. That sense of adventure has now morphed into a sense of not wanting to deal with stress anymore. The philospohy that I use for relationships is now a philosophy I use in my day to day life. Minimize stress and drama.

What am I doing about it? Seriously looking to move - that’s a start. I’m giving myself 6 months. By then, I hope to have a ticket to somewhere in my hand. Sad but true.

I love my Bombay…but from a distance.