Every evening I step into my only pair of branded footwear (if you don't count the embroidered lime green slip-ons bought from last year's sale at Metro, which have never been worn) and do the rounds of my typical suburban surroundings. It's a world that is so normal and everyday but to me, seems so exotic and far-removed from my own. These are people going about their lives just like any other piece of suburbia in any other part of the world - kids, cars and careers in tow.

It took me a long time to even venture out and it was difficult at first. But I do it now, and with considerable ease. Yet, the novelty of it all persists. Misplaced, misguided, mismatched freak that I am, I know I will never fit in. According to yesterday's Mumbai Mirror, I am now what is known as a TWIT (teenage woman in her thirties). Which is a polite (actually not so!) way of saying I haven't grown up. Since the good book (whichever one you follow) tells us that a woman in her mid-thirties without a man, or kids, or job, is, well, no woman at all :-)

So I walk around wide-eyed and wondering about the stories behind those kohl-lined eyes that are now moistening, or those rugged dark fingers enveloped in smoke. Curious as hell about the lives inside the windows, behind the satellite dishes, above the ground, and everywhere you look. Sometimes I see dark wood bathed in warm lights, accenting brick red walls and large, white French windows. Sometimes I see peach and pink walls, cocooning creamy yellow wardrobes with Snoopy and Micky Mouse painted on. Sometimes there are just harsh white lights focusing on checquered underwear fluttering in the breeze.

It's a world that arrests the eyes and shoots triggers off the brain. There isn't too much sound, thanks to the earphones streaming in anything from Jackson Browne to Joshua Kadison. Sometimes I help a little girl find her mother (women with kids love to gossip with other women with kids!) or pick up a howling little boy who's just fallen off his bike, but most of the time I soak in all the sights. Mothers-in-law with walkers; men returning from work, parking cars, stopping for a smoke or a long phone call before going up home; teenage girls peering intently into mobile phones; maids pushing prams and moms pushing bikes; grandfathers catching up with the news of the world. All this combined with a few good rounds of cardio is a heady concoction indeed!

Then I sit by the colourful lights and water fountains, taking in the vociferous wind and cooling my heels. Colbie Caillat croons huskily into my ears or Neil Young reminds me of the time I was called a hurricane. That's when I think about nothing and everything all at once. About lives that become glued together and then get torn apart. About dreams that come true and then dissolve. About sharp cries and quiet smiles, earthy laughter and misty memories. About the day and how it's been, the here and now and everything in between. If there's a full moon I follow it feverishly as it plays hide 'n' seek behind the clouds. Sometimes the clouds move so fast, they make me giddy. And sometimes, it's the stillness in the air that unbuttons my thoughts.

It really is the best part of my day, to which now I am off!