I heart Bombay

It's been a strange few days here in Hyderabad. The city feels combative and on edge. Just this morning, I saw a police officer beating a cowering man on the street while other officers stood around in a circle, silently watching. No clue if it was related to the Telangana movement, but lately it feels like everything that happens out on the street is. Most of Hyderabad was shut down last Saturday, with streets barricaded across the city in preparation for a Telangana storming of the Assembly. My driver must be constantly cajoled to go anywhere, especially at night, constantly citing "curfew."

Work is the reason I stay in Hyderabad. It brought me to India and it keeps me here. I've never been so passionate about a job before, so the trade-off makes sense. But there's no doubt about it: my heart is in Delhi and my (India) soul is in Bombay.

I spent five days in Bombay earlier this month and fell in love with India all over again.

Bombay has this magnetic energy that's difficult to describe but impossible to ignore once you're there. It's the same magnetic energy you feel in New York - when you just feel so alive and every cell is stimulated. There's culture and there's history and there's electricity in the air; the city exudes confident sophistication with nothing to prove. The energy is contagious and makes you want to do everything all at once.

From sitar shopping to feasting on the most delicious butter garlic crab I've tasted to strolling along Marine Drive under the moonlight -- the weekend was incredible. In many ways, the visit was a Tale of Two Cities -- the first was up north, where I stayed with a friend in Santa Cruz, a really cute neighborhood with a strong family feel, where everyone seems to know everyone else. It's just next door to Bandra West, which is hip and edgy and feels a bit like Brooklyn or Fitzroy in Melbourne.

The "second" part is just past the new SeaLink -- an architecturally impressive bridge that lets cab drivers release their inner (and outer) speed demon.

I spend the rest of my stay down south in Colaba, staying with a friend right next to the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Hotel.

It's amazing exploring the city with her. A lawyer by training, she is also deeply creative and artistic. There's something to be said about exploring just a bit of the city -- a small "neighborhood" in the heart of the Kala Ghoda area, and learning it intimately well. The french have a word for this walking and strolling...which is so much more than just walking and strolling: "le flaneur."

I begin to see the city through her eyes -- the architecture of buildings I hadn't noticed before, the hidden gems you can easily miss when you have a "destination" you're focused on. For instance, there's the bright blue synagogue we tried to sneak into after-hours. And the cute little church down a small alleyway, which was built in 1815.

By far the most magical find is the David Sassoon Library, which I must have passed numerous times before, as it stands right on a major road in downtown Bombay. But inside, past the "members only" sign, stands a beautiful Gothic structure that I doubt has changed must since the days of the Raj and when Sassoon opened it, in the turn of the century.

There's an impressive mahogany staircase lined with hundreds of books, which leads to a large but cozy reading room, lined floor to ceiling with antique hard-covered books. Past the reading room, there's a deck with antique lounge chairs, and a "staircase to nowhere" that's the stuff of fairytales and feels like a magical door to Narnia.

I can't get enough, so I'm back the next night, Economist in hand. I never realized a deck overlooking the crazy Bombay streets could be so relaxing. Upon leaving the library, I stumble across a book reading in the outside courtyard -- three Indian authors on a panel talking about the genre of writing about Bombay. Called "Bombay Then, Mumbai Now," the authors talk about the city as their muse and what it means to capture the city of Bombay in literature.

It's not like events like this are fully absent in Hyderabad. But when they happen, they're talk of the town for weeks and happen in the auditorium of the Novotel. Just "stumbling" across some incredible cultural event is something I miss about NY, and which I hadn't experienced in India until the weekend in Bombay.

In fact, the entire weekend is an amazing rush of culture. The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival opened the weekend I arrived, and the entire neighborhood is filled with large street art installations and street fairs with stalls selling everything from local tribal art to antiques.

Tuesday morning, I stop at my new favorite cafe to pick up delicious banana bread with caramel and head to the airport - equal parts happy and sad. Sad to be leaving Bombay, but happy it's just a one hour plane ride away.