Recognition

Standing still in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in the middle of Mumbai, I stare at the sea of humanity. Previously called Victoria Terminus or VT for short, the large train station is teeming with thousands of people. They move in droves huddled together. The horde pulsates collectively as if singular in purpose; the most diverse population I have seen in years. Their clothes vary in style and color; there are men and women, children and frail old men. I watch from the vantage point of my height, heads floating past below me. They look scruffy, hair unkempt.

I spot men in black suits moving in the crowd, their visitor badges offering a variety in colors; the women trade in their comfortable, worn-out sandals for black, shiny stilettos. The men exchange the steel food containers in their hands with briefcases and laptop bags. The old men display cynical smiles below their crinkled noses. The children are gone.

I am at an exhibition.

I roam around, confused on this alien planet. I walk past a cafeteria; the loud noise mixes with the strange smells of heavily processed food to create a clumsy, blurred sense. I try to see where I’m supposed to go, colored signs everywhere. At a table, a group of people are seated.

The say that recognition hits you suddenly; I have established that it actually hits you in strides. In the moment it takes for you to piece together what is happening, the body creates its reaction. Your mind begins to fill gaps with perceived reality, an attempt to complete a picture expected to be seen. The more I looked, the more I recognized, and with every newly found feature, my body rewarded me with another sign of despair.

Seeing the hair as the correct length and style, breathing becomes more laborious, leaving a trailing rattle behind. The correctly shaped jawline makes the mouth go dry, similar to that instant you realize you’ve drunk too much; the attire imagined as worn correctly sets a strange, uncontrollable shake in the right leg, forcing a recalculation of balance. The cheekbones make the heart pound faster; the milligrams of adrenaline cause a shiver down the spine.

In a Fight or Flight type of situation, we rarely choose at all. The coin toss displays its mystical powers of chance, making me walk, or hobble to be precise, towards the almost familiar stranger, who turns to look towards me.

The eyes bring about the reality. No recognition is in them.

The color of the eyes is drastically wrong; the discrepancies in the jaw are finer but present. The mouth is distorted with a smile, missing the requisite wrinkled cheeks. The stranger is not familiar at all, causing a sense of befuddlement similar to having a concussion. The beating heart levels off onto a plateau. Breathing attempts to find an artificial rhythm to follow. I am suddenly aware of the cold sweat on my palms.

I walk away, my limp lingering for a few minutes more, feeling many years older and absolutely drained. Relieved and completely disappointed.

The crowd washes over me.