Through The Sliding Glass Door - Part 1

My bedroom ends at the sliding glass door that is as large as that side of the room. Besides that is a noisy but beautiful world that I observe when no one is around. My view is limited between two signals; start from my left and end at my right.

There might be two renders of this story. One is muted and another one is filled with various noises coming from the road. This contrast itself is an experience and different depiction of a life-nurturing outside of my sliding glass door.

The accumulated sound of the vehicles was no less than a crying sound. The moment the lights turned green, all the vehicles ran like they were in a marathon. Scooty and autorickshaw took lead in the first few seconds and then bikes and cars picked up the pace and declared himself the winner of the unofficial race between two signals.  

Suddenly, my eyes stuck on this girl in a blue top and black skirt and wearing flat slippers with flowers design on it coming from the right end of my sight. The chase began. She was moving at a rather fast pace, leaving behind two old ladies and a thela wala who was in no hurry and shouting for the customers. From her walk, it was clear that she needed to be somewhere urgently. She was running late for something really important as she kept taking glimpses on her phone, probably taking updates of time recurring. Suddenly, a red color swift car came in her way. Stopped right behind her path. She was forced to take a little diversion to get through it.

She got angry, so did I. That was not a parking spot but the driver stopped as there was a grocery shop on the side. As she moved past the car, she picked up the pace. No unsureness about her sweating while running at this tempo, even from this far, I could actually sense it. Her heart was thumping loudly. Her energy was getting low but she was moving forward with all her will. She might be rueing her decision of leaving late for her target today. She might have taken an auto-rickshaw but she ran out of money or maybe the location wasn’t that far and it was her usual routine but she was running a bit late today. For a while, the noise coming from outside was muted and I was lost in my thoughts when my phone beeped and got me back to my consciousness. I promptly shifted my view for a second and acknowledged the message and turned back as it was not important and boom. 

I lost her sight. I tried hard and moved my eyes around quickly but she was gone. I sighed. I felt I missed something. I embarked on her journey with her and now I was left behind. Betrayed. For a while, I felt like I was playing a live video game where I would have to help the girl to reach her destination and overcome all the hurdles and leaving others behind. But I failed. I drew the curtains and left.

It was heavy raining the next day. The rain was blocking the view like fog did in winters. 

I had my view blurred for the rest of the day. Even there were not enough moving crowds and onlookers that day. I was gazing at the raindrops streaming down from the railing. There was some noise in the background from my partner who was on the phone call with her so-called besties. I had thought of turning on some music but stopped midway as it might distract her and resultant to end my focus towards the outside world. I left. 

I recurringly appeared there that day but I was more inclined towards writing and shaping the structure of this story. Having said that, we moved to the very next day when the Mumbai weather surprised me with its nature. 

It was a dark yellow sun rising high in the sky with no dark clouds and utter humility. It was even hard to sit for a second near the door. Another day was wasted.

I decided to sit at the golden hour in the evening with a cup of coffee. 

At first, I took a quick look around from right to left, I saw a river far from me beside the buildings. Some buildings were really tall and therefore some were unnoticed by me. I saw a transmission tower. Honestly speaking I had a surface-level knowledge about it. Some birds in the sky randomly came into my sight. I had a hard time guessing which bird it was. 

The sky was getting golden around the sun’s perimeter. Below that point, the dark was rising from the ground. I could see trees shaped at the end of my view. The innate beauty of the sight was awe. I almost forgot to sip into my coffee for 10 minutes. These were precious. The darkness didn’t last long. One by one street lights started turning up followed by house lights, and other sources. I was watching all this change in front of my eyes through the sliding glass door. The door was shut today so I could not hear the noise but could still feel it. I yawned and moved to my writing space and had a thought to write about this someday.