I'm not getting younger

It's quite easy for our minds to lie dormant, almost comatose.
We make our peace with our society and the way things are destined to proceed and one of the truisms of life has always made me sigh in amazement - things turn out well in the end.

"Everything will be alright in the end; if it's not alright it's not the end."

The pursuit of wealth, comforts, social happiness and belonging does not allow one to leave one's surroundings; this inertia gains strength as we age and as we find ourselves mired in the realm of attachment.

I'm not getting younger and I'm afraid that a few years from now, I will have lost a small bit of my independence - the freedom to pack my bag and leave without due notice.

Youth is wasted on the young for this precise reason, the young ache to grow old and once there, they moan in disbelief. I leave for the US next week - the land that had freed me from set stains in my mind - and even now I ache to see that land. It's not all amazing; of course it has its drawbacks (the lack of streetfood por ejemplo) but it's about the freedom to pursue individual dreams. The freedom does not imply the plausibility but only the possibility of trying.

Today, I feel that I have not lived enough and I believe that the confines of this city will not allow me to grow my spiritual tentacles. It may be termed as the pursuit of happiness, but it is far from it.

It is the thrill of something new - "The core of man's spirit comes from new experiences."
I hope to move to another town for a month or two in the upcoming monsoons. And I hope that I have the courage to do so. It just might be the Malabar Coast.

I'm not getting younger and it may be time that I seize this opportunity. I don't want to wait for my 30s because I don't know if I will get there. A few years from now, I may not be able to live alone for a prolonged period of time.
I believe that there are joys to the innumerable sides of the sphere that is our lives; may be my attitude needs to be managed, but may be I should go berserk before I am forced to manage it. 

Why must I live in Mumbai?

We don't like change, we tend to prefer that with which we are accustomed. I was born in Mumbai and have been living here for more than 25 years - which reminds me that I am getting older - and oddly, I can't think of another place where I would happily move to... Sure, I may think in dreamy terms of a better city, but the massive upheaval that would ensue were I to move away is quite daunting.

This city is bursting at its seams, in-seams and even through the patchwork and fabric that makes this city what it is. Quality of life is rather poor on an absolute scale and one wonders why one ought to keep living in a city with which one is so familiar. Sure, there is great comfort in knowing one's surroundings, sub-culture and the general pace and flow of things.

But I want the ability to cycle at 6 pm on a Sunday. It's a simple desire, which if unmet will leave me mildly pricked, nothing more.
The industrial age norm of working 9 am to 5 pm has somehow transformed itself to 9 am to 7 pm because of an overpopulated and hyper-competitive country - and people take it for granted because there really is nothing that one can do to challenge that; it's how the capitalist system works. Survival of the fittest.
A repercussion of a long work day and a Saturday being included as a work day is a spill-over effect on people who work fewer hours - they are envied, ridiculed and laughed at. And that is OK. But it is poisonous. It is akin to straight people looking at gay people and saying that the gays are wrong. Funnily, it works the other way round too.

But why is it so difficult to think of leaving one's home? One's 'own' city?
I want to.
For a peaceful neighbourhood, for proximity to nature, for a more sparsely populated city, where individual rights are respected, where I can feel safe with whoever my family will be, where power is relatively even and it is still a city.

Don't know how people can afford a 2 Cr home here and be afraid of moving to a smaller, cheaper, nicer city? I have the question, don't have the answer.