I’m constantly asked this, why don’t you settle down in Dubai, after all your sisters are here and wouldn’t your mum want to be closer to her daughters? Don’t you like Dubai ? Obviously, isn’t Dubai way better than Mumbai?
Well to an extent I know what they say is true. I know that my mum would love to have her children together rather than shuffling between two countries (let alone two cities), and no matter how much I deny it , Dubai is leaps and bounds ahead of Mumbai, but then the heart belongs to Mumbai. Trust me this is not a patriotic thing, it’s just a personal thing.
They say home is where the heart is, and the heart belongs to Mumbai, cause no matter where I go, Mumbai will always be home.
Yeah, Mumbai is no Dubai, but then the same can be said about Dubai too, Dubai is no Mumbai. Mumbai has a charm of its own, it has a beating heart, feels very much real. Dubai, for all its trappings and luxuries and amenities, somewhere feels very man-made, feels very plasticky, and no matter what they say, life in plastic ain’t fantastic.
Plus mumbai is where the friends are, people who are more like family. Mumbai is where the tribe resides, whether it’s running or dancing. People who make you feel most alive, people who make you feel the love, people who make you feel yourself.
This is something you don’t have in Dubai. So you can be with a bunch of people and still feel all alone.
You’ve gone through so much in Mumbai, loss, heartbreaks, heartaches, failures, resentment, hopelessness. But despite it all you know there’s resilience, there’s still hope, there’s still faith, there’s people who will rally around you to save you from yourself. Something you are afraid that you may not have if you move anywhere else let alone Dubai.
So in the end, after every trip, it feels a pang of sadness to leave Dubai, after all you’ve been here so many times, and people who are your blood resides here, but your heart will always be there with Mumbai.
