You fallback on what comforted you as a kid. In my case, it was always the telly. Always, over meals. It inspired me in a way that no role model living or dead ever could. Everything that I have, everything that I am is somehow, somewhere shaped by the telly. 

Bombay, in my imagination, was no different. Everything in my head would converge and come to reality if I ever did step foot in Bombay, or so thought my 8-10 year old self.

In the best montage, I would imagine myself to be a damsel in an Asha Bhosle-Leslie Lewis video. However, this was short-lived, like in Indipop. It was soon washed over by raunchy videos and second-rated covers that followed in the noughties.

The first time when I landed in Bombay, I was hoping for a life-changing run-in. The urge to become big and grow to be a star was never in me. Probably that’s why an influencer career has evaded me thus far. I digress, but I hate to admit that I did orchestrate something of a run-in sort with a man I vaguely knew. I remember smiling to myself, staring out the window of the room on a sweltering March night, knowing misery loves company. He had been just as sick of the city as I was, except, I’d spent three hours and he had been there about three months. 

Since life isn’t an Asha Bhosle meet-cute Indipop video, nothing of the sort followed. If anything, that trip and the stories are more inclined to be drawn on the storyboard of a Maddock Production film, completely deranged and utterly unpredictable. But, I never lost telly dreams. 

In the last few weeks, as I have discovered seeking my comfort zone and traded it for everything I am yet to learn and know, Indipop made a comeback. In a way, restarting workouts to an Indipop playlist was closer to my way than the imagined life. Bombay in Indipop was filled with clubs, lecherous men, pretty women, men who wanted to protect the honour of pretty women with other men and a smiling producer somewhere, looking cheerful that their production and consequently the meet-cute in the video is a hit. 

I’m not saying brisk walking to Malkit Singh-Bally Sagoo is a brilliant idea and neither am I saying knowing all the words to Bin Tere Sanam by DJ Suketu is a sign of hope, but it definitely brought me closer to nature. There’s no club-like setting and no Milind Soman at my creative workplace (if I said it inspired my professional choices you’d have no respect for me but it really did). I don’t drink nor have a yum hero who will rescue me if I ever faced any adversity anywhere.
But god, it is fun to have Suneeta Rao remind me, “Paree hoon main”.