Eine Stadt der Traeume

Dreams are what cities are made of.

Mumbai is full of dreams, you stumble across them around every corner, lingering around on the floors, walking, running, making noises.
And if you go to look up the sky you will find dreams floating around like ballons.
And you can hear them, you can literally see them burst, one after the other, disappearing into the sky.
No Mumbai is not a city for dreamers as we know them , as people of bel esprit as artists as musicians....
Artistic people that fill up the parks in the summer in Berlin, to show off the lightness of being. No. Mumbai is built out of different dreams.
Its a city of a reality that almost feels like a dream in itself, as it is just so hard to get your head around it.
Trying to make sense of the things that happen around you. Unable to understand, you just stand there, overwhelmed by this dream.
Sometimes I wished it was a dream.
And for me, and my situation, it didn't even seem so far away as I knew that I can step out of this dream anytime, I can step back into my reality, and like waking up from a dream, I could just open my eyes the next morning, to live my life in my reality again.
But i wished it to be a different, rather dreamish reality for all those millions of people struggling for life every day, living in incredible circumstances.
Thinking about it, its clear to me now that Mumbai has artists, millions of them....
it has life artists.

What if the lack of options make you creative?
creatively desperate. For money, for survival, for dreams...?

Where are the dreamers, and who are they.
I think that in one or the other way, we are all dreamers. Dreams are important as they can take us away from our limited physical experience, into the unlimited imagination of our mind. Everything is possible with a little stretch of imagination.
Wings, that take us into a different reality, back doors that can be opened to breathe, if the air gets too sticky in the house of reality.
We all dream, consciously or unconsciously.
What about the realization? Everything is possible? For whom?
With my eyes, looking at my life, its true, everything is possible, as I have got the freedom to make sure of it.
And what about all those bursting balloons above Mumbai?
Transparent like bubbles, blown out into the wind, ready to be taken away a few meters until they disappear, as if they had never existed.
These are all hopes. One more fragile than the other, connected to all sorts of dreams.
Its hope that draws people into the city week by week, day by day.
A glimpse of hope for a better life, a better future for the children....
European cities have the attraction of self realization, of freedom, of opportunities.

To a Megacity like Mumbai, the cosmopolitan capital, and the commercial center of Indiai, all sorts of hopes are connected, but what would you call a hope that is born out of being optionless?
Facing a lack of options, then at least you need hope....what else is left?

So imagine a city whose population just grows exponentially, and with its population, its problems....
Impossible?
I find it difficult to imagine, still.
Having the chance to spend some time in Mumbai,I was introduced to a new dimension of life.
The notion global city has now a very different meaning for me. Now there are pictures in my head, impressions, experiences, moments.....all piling up like a mountain, with all sorts of connections to stored information in my mind.
Even the smallest interaction can have the power to raise a good amount of questions in your head, as everything is in your face.
Extremities, crowds, noise, bursting balloons of hope....
The level of stress seems to be constantly exceeding the limits.
Yes the city has its flow, like any other city. But one hardly wants to swim in it, as its not like a flowing river, far too romantic!, no its rather like a moving torrent, ready to take you off your feet anytime.
Moving around Mumbais flow, its like standing in this torrent, water flushing through your body, taking away all the energy away from you. Mumbai requires so much adjustment, challenges and compromises from its inhabitants....( from my point of view)
And what about the people for whom thats reality
What if your not overwhelmed by whats around you. What if for you it signifies normality? Then you have never known anything else. A thought....one more that is hard to believe.
For me living there,in this flow, is connected to compromises and adjustments, nearly all the time. As I am challenged in my notion of time and space.
The way to work can be the first though compromise of the day. Waking up with that very thought in your mind, makes you wanna step back into the world of sleep, where everything was smooth and easy.
Well what can you do. Prepare mentally for the challenge and then....challenge your level of comfort.
Its an adventure that seems not to be from this world. Not from the world I have know before coming to India anyway.
Standing, morning after morning on the train platform in Malad, one of Mumbai's various suburbs, where we stayed with our cool couchsurf hosts, having to fight my way into the train...competing in running competitions to get on it....just to get into central Mumbai.
Yes, its def felt like a new introduction to time and space. A mass of people on the same spot, moving into the same direction at the same moment, here and now.
And I am a part of it.
Standing on the train I wonder what destinies surround me. What brings all my fellow train riding companions to be here.
What do we share...?
Yes we are all here, now....and that includes yes, me, that includes business men, workers, beggars, women who carry the heaviest, thatched baskets on their heads filled with a whole variety of foods to sell on the local markets, children in ragged clothes getting ready for their daily begging mission, like little businessmen on their own, students, housewives riding to one of the markets........as different as we all may be, and as different our daily missions are, but we are all here.
But thinking about it, for me its clear that I am in a different situation than everyone else, I am here by choice.
That makes a difference, a huge one.
Because in that case, even then I can laugh. I can laugh because for me its an experience. Not a necessity. But what if thats your fate, what if you have to go through the same situation every day, simply because you want to survive, because you have to support a family.....yes, it is the fate of my fellow train riding companions, going to work every day to keep that huge wheel of the economy going. and there is so much hope attached to it.
For me, soon I will step out of this train, knowing that I can leave....I can just walk out of the chaos.
And then maybe one fine day, sitting in the U-Bahn in Berlin , I will remember these eventful days in Mumbai and this thought will create a smile on my lips....
Yes I am standing in the crowd and heat of the morning train moving into central Mumbai thinking about that, and I know that I have access to a world that the majority of my fellow train companions will never even be able to think about....Yes of course I feel bad about it, but I am still here in that train so what can I do......yes I will stop thinking and I will smile, and I will share that moment and then I will get of the train to start my day.

For me, the work I am doing here is pleasure. And that fact might be an even bigger priviledge.
And for feeling priviledged in that way, I do not even have to be in India, in fact I can be everywhere in the world. But in Europe I wouldn't feel bad about it, whereas here I do.
Why?
Its a lack of choices.
Most Europeans have the chance to be the creators of their own destinies, the majority of Indians don't have that chance.

I always imagine a world, where everyone would just follow their passions. Where everyone has the freedom, the courage and the possibility to live their personal passion.
How joyful would that world be. How much love would be around in this world.
Jealousy would disappear, competition and comparism....
I love this imagination and I will not condemn it.
I will continue thinking about it, and i want to continue meeting people who are passionate about what they are doing, because in fact, for me, thats the best inspiration for life.
So how lucky am I to have met someone who follows her passion, a visionary. And even luckier that I had the chance to work with her during my time in Mumbai.

Luckily there are visionaries, brave people with dreams who step out of their priviledged, comfortable zone to work hard for a brighter future.
Simply for their passions and their dreams.
To dive into Preetis vision left me inspired, she even planted a seed of her vision in my head, too.
Thats the power of passion.
Her vision was that everyone should grow their own food even in the urban areas, or especially there, creating a (greater) network of self-sufficiency.
Self-sufficiency arises like a necessity out of the problems of the present economic system.
It provides for the city dweller, tired of the stone and paved streets, the joy of having a little patch of land, cultivating organic food, if for no other reason to enjoy homegrown and healthful food....
Preeti, this amazing woman, managed to set up the most impressive organic rooftop garden, growing nearly everything one could imagine from Avodcados to Zuccinis.
Driven by her results, she made it her mission to insoire people to do the same thing.
While I was there, we planned a model workshop for a school in central Mumbai, aiming to convert the rooftop into a fertile organic garden. Providing healthy organic food for the kids at lunchtime and helping kids towards a better understanding of food production and consumption.
Isn't it a great vision?
The roof of a city. No concrete jungle, but rooftops, terraces, empty spaces creating a lush green jungle of biodiversity...
We should think greener, instead of concreter....