Blame my gypsy soul

It was the morning of 22nd April 2014 when the fog slowly gave way and let the sun leak through the clouds. A young girl peered out of her window and saw tall skyscrapers, all clad in the subtlest of pastel shades. From the 31st floor of her hotel room she was looking at her first other country- Hong Kong.

After absorbing the perfumed air of the unknown territory, she lay her feet on the bustling lanes of Kowloon, walked to the nearest Metro station and boarded the first train.

For a girl who grew up in the fast paced city of Mumbai, the calmness of travelling in a pristine, systematic transport system was both overwhelming and daunting at the same time.
The flow of the moving crowd let her safely walk into the train compartment and find herself a cozy corner to stand.

From here she saw the most peculiar sight of fifty odd heads bent down in a synchronized fashion, their eyes embedded into their respective phones.
She had never witnessed a wave of technology gripping each individual in this magnitude. As a filmmaker her first instinct was to reach out for her camera.
It was when she had almost set up her frame and was about to record that she noticed an old man staring across at her.
Maybe it is impolite to record people in Hong Kong, she thought, for she was unaware of the ways of any other country but her own.
With the intention of not offending anyone, she slowly put her camera away and tried to avoid the man’s gaze. She had heard so many terrifying stories about ‘safety’ in another country, and her head automatically recalled the many tips her mother had given her before leaving home.
These words now reverberated in her head and she gripped her handbag more securely than before, something very unusual for her carefree self to do.

Just one more station, she thought and she was to get off. She was counting down the minutes in her head- but it was a century before the door finally opened.

When it did, she jumped out of the train and was ready to fly off the exit when a voice shouted something in an incoherent language and a hand patted her shoulder.
She turned around reluctantly and saw the old man standing behind her.
He reached his hand out and touched her hair, ‘purple-full’ he said. He gave her a warm smile and walked away.

She stood there in the middle of the crowd, glancing down at her purple hair- her face slowly fading in to a smile.
How could she forget this day?

She was in Hong Kong and she knew that the ice had been broken.