I planned to spend a day at home, doing nothing significant really; step out later to pick up a few odd things perhaps, then meet a friend for coffee. Little did I know that this loony city doesn't permit quiet and solitude.
After attempting to laze around and failing miserably because of salespeople constantly ringing the doorbell, noisy construction workers drilling into the raw nerves in my head, muttering pigeons nesting on the air conditioner just outside my window, I decided to head out. I got into a tiny autorikshaw (the vehicle of almost-certain death) which flew down the narrow streets first barely missing the passing stray dog, next the clueless pedestrian, and finally not so lucky, scraping the side of a companion autorickshaw. The driver glared at the back of the other auto as it sped off oblivious of the cuts and bruises it had left behind on the man's machine.
All in a days work in Bombay city. I got my errands done and headed home to find a large police van, with barred windows and space in the back for at least four prisoners, parked outside my building. Several plain clothes cops stood around looking suspiciously at anyone who walked through this gate of hell. I looked them in the eye, and walked past with the knowledge that it wasn't me: I was busy plotting the death of the city's piegons. And if that doesn't work, hear this: I was dead at the time.
(I don't know why the cops were here, but like any good nosy Indian, I intend to find out.)
Despite all of this, or maybe even because of it, this place is more than just a sensory overload. There are times I feel like I never left India. It has me wondering if the last three years of my life were merely a dream. But of course they weren't; my landlady, back in the Washington DC, who's waiting for my rent check will vouch for that, I'm sure.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
In Flight
Sparkling orange in a twilight sky. One side of the world is winding down, another is getting ready to wake up, a third is in blissful slumber. I glide through worlds that change across imagined timezones and man made borders.
I came to stay. I'm about to leave. Goodnight, Washington D.C. Good morning, Paris. Namaste, India!
I came to stay. I'm about to leave. Goodnight, Washington D.C. Good morning, Paris. Namaste, India!
Monday, May 21, 2007
No Ordinary Summer
Three days later, the gardener came to work. I stared at him from behind the thick blue velvet drapes in the living room. Every now and then, he would glance up toward the house and I would jump back in fear. I knew it was him I had seen that night.
***
We were on our traditional summer journey to my mother’s childhood home. As the train chugged lazily into the station, 12 hours behind schedule, I peered out through the scratched and dusty double paned glass. The soot from the town’s coalmines encircled the neon light of the train station. Out of the gray cloud, I spotted my uncle and waved.
Visiting this small forgotten town in East India had come to be a ritual. As soon as school closed for the three-month summer, my mother would pack my brother’s bags and mine and off we would go to Asansol. My father would join us later.
***
Asansol? Not for me, thanks. The town has too few people, and is far too polluted. I didn’t mind visiting it for the summer, mostly because I missed my grandfather, uncle and aunt who lived there. Given the choice, I’d rather they visited me. My mother’s seven-room house was like the others. Large and secluded. Every sunset I would be reminded of our isolation, and my heart would sink as the house inside got brighter, and the world outside got darker. “What would we do,” I thought, “if ever something were to happen to us.”
***
As he drove his silent guests home from the train station, my uncle’s voice interrupted my muffled thoughts. “Asansol’s changing.” A new head of police was in town and he had clamped down on coal theft that had been rampant for years. Several local gangs would steal the coal as it came into the town from the neighboring city late every night and sell it elsewhere. Now , coal thefts had stopped and house burglaries had started.
“It happens all the time,” he said. “What would we do,” I thought, “if something were to happen.”
***
It was wonderful to see my grandfather again. And my aunt, by far one of my favorites. She had a gentle air and had numerous stories to tell anyone she met. This was despite her rarely leaving the house, bound to a wheelchair by Multiple Sclerosis.
This family reunion was different from previous ones. Fatigue stopped by and commanded us to bed. The family filled one another in on uneventful incidents and called it a night.
***
At 1 a.m. there was a loud banging at the door. The walls of the house shook and the heavy metal chain used to lock the door rattled violently against the wooden entranceway. I searched for the sound in my sleep. Realm after realm had nothing. I was snapped awake. This was real.
The banging continued. And then several things happened. My uncle jumped out of bed and ran to the door, my mother flung the bedcover over my head to cover me, my aunt wheeled herself into the restroom and locked herself in. My grandfather lumbered over to my room. But most significant of all an intruder, already inside our house, opened the door to seven men armed with knives and country rifles.
Just then my uncle reached the door. Someone struck him on the forehead with a knife and he fell back holding his bleeding head. As one man stood guard over him, the others rushed inside. They were headed for my room.
***
By now I was semi conscious of what was happening. Still covered, I could hear loud heavy voices. I peeked through a slit in the bedcover to put words to the sounds. In the darkness I saw distinct shadows around me, some decipherable, others not. My brother on the bed next to me was sitting up alert and my mother on the bed with me seemed eerily calm. My grandfather had entered our room from the other door and was pushed to my brother’s bed.
The noise was deafening. Three men pounded the steel cupboard with a large rock they had brought in, while two others rummaged through our bags shouting at us to tell us where the money was.
I shook now and couldn’t breathe. My mother held me down the whole time, making sure I didn’t throw off the covers.
Just then a man rushed to her and yelled at her to take off her jewelry. As she tried to get her gold bangles off, he grabbed hold of her hand and yanked at them. She screamed and my brother shouted loudly in Hindi, “What the hell are you doing?” A thug standing behind him picked up a large wooden rod holding up our mosquito nets and struck him on the neck with it. It broke in half and my brother collapsed. The net fell lightly on him. I began to cry as I fumbled with the netting, trying frantically to rip it apart and clutch on to him. In turn, all he said to me was, “sshh sshh sshh” as he did everything to move my hands away.
My family was bleeding and there was nothing I could do but hide under the covers terrified. In all my 15 years, I had never felt so small and so weak. And then all of a sudden I had my question answered: If something were to happen to us, nobody would know. There wasn’t a soul for miles. It was just us, hurting and helpless.
***
The men were monstrous and drunk. They smelled of cheap tobacco and sweat. They continued their raid, and in the midst of it all, someone, to alarm the assailants, shouted, “Police!” With that, the robbers fled. My uncle rushed to call the police but the phone lines had been cut.
***
The next morning, I relived every moment. I tried to reconstruct the night differently. The men had not hit my brother. They had not cut my grandfather. My uncle did not have a wounded forehead. Yet, the blood splattered across the room, the dented steel cupboard and the disarray everywhere showed otherwise.
By mid afternoon, strangers filled the house once more. Police officers asked us about our housekeepers and, over endless cups of tea, talked casually about similar cases. This was common and also rarely solved, they said.
With the help of our housekeepers, we pulled the house together again. My uncle went back to work and my mother spent hours with my grandfather. Only one person hadn’t shown up for work. My uncle said he would turn up eventually.
***
The third morning as I sat in the living room reading, from the corner of my eye I saw a figure walk through the unlocked gates. I knew I had seen him somewhere. I watched him head for the hosepipe, distractedly attach it to the waterspout and begin watering the plants. From the window, I stared suspiciously at his bruised eye and wondered why he had been missing for three days. All of a sudden, I knew who he was and where I had seen him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fear. The feeling shot to the pit of my stomach. It was heavy, like a mass of rock, anchored to the bottom of the lake having crushed all life that once existed there. Every now and again, it jerked up to my throat, and I swallowed it down.
I wasn’t ever going to let it leave.
***
We were on our traditional summer journey to my mother’s childhood home. As the train chugged lazily into the station, 12 hours behind schedule, I peered out through the scratched and dusty double paned glass. The soot from the town’s coalmines encircled the neon light of the train station. Out of the gray cloud, I spotted my uncle and waved.
Visiting this small forgotten town in East India had come to be a ritual. As soon as school closed for the three-month summer, my mother would pack my brother’s bags and mine and off we would go to Asansol. My father would join us later.
***
Asansol? Not for me, thanks. The town has too few people, and is far too polluted. I didn’t mind visiting it for the summer, mostly because I missed my grandfather, uncle and aunt who lived there. Given the choice, I’d rather they visited me. My mother’s seven-room house was like the others. Large and secluded. Every sunset I would be reminded of our isolation, and my heart would sink as the house inside got brighter, and the world outside got darker. “What would we do,” I thought, “if ever something were to happen to us.”
***
As he drove his silent guests home from the train station, my uncle’s voice interrupted my muffled thoughts. “Asansol’s changing.” A new head of police was in town and he had clamped down on coal theft that had been rampant for years. Several local gangs would steal the coal as it came into the town from the neighboring city late every night and sell it elsewhere. Now , coal thefts had stopped and house burglaries had started.
“It happens all the time,” he said. “What would we do,” I thought, “if something were to happen.”
***
It was wonderful to see my grandfather again. And my aunt, by far one of my favorites. She had a gentle air and had numerous stories to tell anyone she met. This was despite her rarely leaving the house, bound to a wheelchair by Multiple Sclerosis.
This family reunion was different from previous ones. Fatigue stopped by and commanded us to bed. The family filled one another in on uneventful incidents and called it a night.
***
At 1 a.m. there was a loud banging at the door. The walls of the house shook and the heavy metal chain used to lock the door rattled violently against the wooden entranceway. I searched for the sound in my sleep. Realm after realm had nothing. I was snapped awake. This was real.
The banging continued. And then several things happened. My uncle jumped out of bed and ran to the door, my mother flung the bedcover over my head to cover me, my aunt wheeled herself into the restroom and locked herself in. My grandfather lumbered over to my room. But most significant of all an intruder, already inside our house, opened the door to seven men armed with knives and country rifles.
Just then my uncle reached the door. Someone struck him on the forehead with a knife and he fell back holding his bleeding head. As one man stood guard over him, the others rushed inside. They were headed for my room.
***
By now I was semi conscious of what was happening. Still covered, I could hear loud heavy voices. I peeked through a slit in the bedcover to put words to the sounds. In the darkness I saw distinct shadows around me, some decipherable, others not. My brother on the bed next to me was sitting up alert and my mother on the bed with me seemed eerily calm. My grandfather had entered our room from the other door and was pushed to my brother’s bed.
The noise was deafening. Three men pounded the steel cupboard with a large rock they had brought in, while two others rummaged through our bags shouting at us to tell us where the money was.
I shook now and couldn’t breathe. My mother held me down the whole time, making sure I didn’t throw off the covers.
Just then a man rushed to her and yelled at her to take off her jewelry. As she tried to get her gold bangles off, he grabbed hold of her hand and yanked at them. She screamed and my brother shouted loudly in Hindi, “What the hell are you doing?” A thug standing behind him picked up a large wooden rod holding up our mosquito nets and struck him on the neck with it. It broke in half and my brother collapsed. The net fell lightly on him. I began to cry as I fumbled with the netting, trying frantically to rip it apart and clutch on to him. In turn, all he said to me was, “sshh sshh sshh” as he did everything to move my hands away.
My family was bleeding and there was nothing I could do but hide under the covers terrified. In all my 15 years, I had never felt so small and so weak. And then all of a sudden I had my question answered: If something were to happen to us, nobody would know. There wasn’t a soul for miles. It was just us, hurting and helpless.
***
The men were monstrous and drunk. They smelled of cheap tobacco and sweat. They continued their raid, and in the midst of it all, someone, to alarm the assailants, shouted, “Police!” With that, the robbers fled. My uncle rushed to call the police but the phone lines had been cut.
***
The next morning, I relived every moment. I tried to reconstruct the night differently. The men had not hit my brother. They had not cut my grandfather. My uncle did not have a wounded forehead. Yet, the blood splattered across the room, the dented steel cupboard and the disarray everywhere showed otherwise.
By mid afternoon, strangers filled the house once more. Police officers asked us about our housekeepers and, over endless cups of tea, talked casually about similar cases. This was common and also rarely solved, they said.
With the help of our housekeepers, we pulled the house together again. My uncle went back to work and my mother spent hours with my grandfather. Only one person hadn’t shown up for work. My uncle said he would turn up eventually.
***
The third morning as I sat in the living room reading, from the corner of my eye I saw a figure walk through the unlocked gates. I knew I had seen him somewhere. I watched him head for the hosepipe, distractedly attach it to the waterspout and begin watering the plants. From the window, I stared suspiciously at his bruised eye and wondered why he had been missing for three days. All of a sudden, I knew who he was and where I had seen him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fear. The feeling shot to the pit of my stomach. It was heavy, like a mass of rock, anchored to the bottom of the lake having crushed all life that once existed there. Every now and again, it jerked up to my throat, and I swallowed it down.
I wasn’t ever going to let it leave.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Bloggit!
It seems that I'm incapable of writing these days. And so I'm posting writings from the summer before last, when I was a lot more dark, sullen and existentially anguished -- but nonetheless reasonably well-traveled!
(These days I'm just hungry)
(Summer 2005)
My city’s under water from the endless rain storms, and I’m sitting on dry land 6,000 miles away anxious and helpless. So what if her people are dying; people I’ve shared space with, people I’ve cursed under my breath, people I’ve turned to for direction. So what if the ground I walked on day after day for 23 years and more is melting under the pressure of human corpses and animal carcasses. I’m here and there’s nothing I can do but walk the streets of Bombay in my mind over and over again, not knowing how it’s all changed beyond recognition. Not wanting to know.
This is where my people and I part ways for I haven’t seen what they have. We’ll never have a common base to stand on again. Our land is breaking and as they struggle to swim to safety, I stand on high ground peering from behind shadows of security.
London, July, 2005
I’d like to say I’ve seen it all but that’s far from true. Today, two weeks after the bomb blasts, the city is on red alert again. Today, the world is an awful place to live in. I’m afraid of everyman as he is of me. I remind him of a concept he has grown to hate. The color of my skin represents threat and terror and he would rather not see me, rather not have me in his midst.
Connecticut, June 2005
As I tried to cross the street, an old Haitian man held me back. He said I was too young to be breaking streetlights, said I had a long way to go. He seemed to know what he was talking about, in his head, at least. “I’m not respected here,” he said. “Look at me.” And I did. He was a professor in that country and dressed like one in this. But he wasn’t getting the respect he had grown so accustomed to. So, why was he here?
New York City, July 2005
“I like money,” a Bangladeshi cab driver confided in me, trying his hardest to justify his presence in a place 10,000 miles away from his own. “Do you like it here?” I had asked him. You heard the man. I tipped him well for his honesty and walked unsteadily into China Town. I was on my way to Washington DC.
“Do I hear a 72nd Street?”
Bidding in a New York subway. I’d asked if the train was going to 66th Street. New Yorkers all joined in the bid. Somebody said it went to 48th, another said he was sure it went to 55th, a third said, “Oh yes, it goes to 66th”
Who said it’s an unfriendly city? For a while there, we were all New Yorkers, brown, black and white. We were all helping a young New Yorker who needed to make her way to Lincoln Center. We all spoke a common language. We all laughed when the bid touched 72nd Street. We were everyman. Only we hadn’t brought along our darling child. Hate was at school that day.
South Norwalk, Connecticut, June 2005
It’s how you present yourself. It’s what you make of yourself. That’s all it is. That’s a valuable lesson I learned this summer.
Oxford Street, London, August 2005
Europeans dress rather well. They must have learned my lesson several summers ago.
Baltimore, July 2005
I’m on my way to DC on an unreliable China Town bus that has just broken down. It’s been nine hours; I’ve slept, I’ve read and I’m far from near. I’ve had an interesting chat with a Yale student who’s traveled the world. His last trip was to Pakistan. He has a story to tell. I listen as I watch the driver stomp around the broken bus.
The Jubilee Line, London’s Tube, July 2005
She wasn’t trying to be friendly when she asked where they were from. She very well knew. She wasn’t curious when she asked why his wife’s face wasn’t hidden behind a black veil, why he didn’t have four wives. She couldn’t care less. She was the epitome of everyman. And she thrived on hate.
And yet, as us brown skinned cousins walked off the tube that day covered in indignation, we weren’t expecting to run into a friendly Londoner. He proved us wrong as life often does; went out of his way to help. Who was he, then?
A member of the minority, I thought as I tried to justify his act of kindness. He had opened the ticket machine to find our punched in ticket so we wouldn’t have to shell out more cash. What was it to him? It was a couple of quid at the end of the day. He helped anyway. And we were grateful for it.
At the foot of the Big Ben, July 26 (or thereabouts), 2005
I got to hear it chime today. It sounds like the Columbia Missouri clock tower; it looks like the Big Ben carved and gilded in gold.
Stomp, the last day of July 2005
They make music with non-musical things. And how.
Portobello Market, London, July 2005
I saw an ancient map today, dated 1826. It was a map of Hindoostan, and Pakistan wasn’t and Bombay was.
Today, on the first day of August 2005, Bombay almost isn’t.
What’s to become of my city?
Priori Road, London, August 3, 2005, 10 a.m.
Today’s Metro reads, “Faith hate crimes rise by 600%”
It was bound to happen.
Today…
On the eight day of the eighth month in the sixth year of the 21st century, I stood at longitude 0. The place where time begins for most of the world.
It felt much like any other longitude and I hurried home, knowing only too well that time waits for no man.
Columbia, Missouri, August 21, 2005
Tired and still on London time.
(These days I'm just hungry)
(Summer 2005)
My city’s under water from the endless rain storms, and I’m sitting on dry land 6,000 miles away anxious and helpless. So what if her people are dying; people I’ve shared space with, people I’ve cursed under my breath, people I’ve turned to for direction. So what if the ground I walked on day after day for 23 years and more is melting under the pressure of human corpses and animal carcasses. I’m here and there’s nothing I can do but walk the streets of Bombay in my mind over and over again, not knowing how it’s all changed beyond recognition. Not wanting to know.
This is where my people and I part ways for I haven’t seen what they have. We’ll never have a common base to stand on again. Our land is breaking and as they struggle to swim to safety, I stand on high ground peering from behind shadows of security.
London, July, 2005
I’d like to say I’ve seen it all but that’s far from true. Today, two weeks after the bomb blasts, the city is on red alert again. Today, the world is an awful place to live in. I’m afraid of everyman as he is of me. I remind him of a concept he has grown to hate. The color of my skin represents threat and terror and he would rather not see me, rather not have me in his midst.
Connecticut, June 2005
As I tried to cross the street, an old Haitian man held me back. He said I was too young to be breaking streetlights, said I had a long way to go. He seemed to know what he was talking about, in his head, at least. “I’m not respected here,” he said. “Look at me.” And I did. He was a professor in that country and dressed like one in this. But he wasn’t getting the respect he had grown so accustomed to. So, why was he here?
New York City, July 2005
“I like money,” a Bangladeshi cab driver confided in me, trying his hardest to justify his presence in a place 10,000 miles away from his own. “Do you like it here?” I had asked him. You heard the man. I tipped him well for his honesty and walked unsteadily into China Town. I was on my way to Washington DC.
“Do I hear a 72nd Street?”
Bidding in a New York subway. I’d asked if the train was going to 66th Street. New Yorkers all joined in the bid. Somebody said it went to 48th, another said he was sure it went to 55th, a third said, “Oh yes, it goes to 66th”
Who said it’s an unfriendly city? For a while there, we were all New Yorkers, brown, black and white. We were all helping a young New Yorker who needed to make her way to Lincoln Center. We all spoke a common language. We all laughed when the bid touched 72nd Street. We were everyman. Only we hadn’t brought along our darling child. Hate was at school that day.
South Norwalk, Connecticut, June 2005
It’s how you present yourself. It’s what you make of yourself. That’s all it is. That’s a valuable lesson I learned this summer.
Oxford Street, London, August 2005
Europeans dress rather well. They must have learned my lesson several summers ago.
Baltimore, July 2005
I’m on my way to DC on an unreliable China Town bus that has just broken down. It’s been nine hours; I’ve slept, I’ve read and I’m far from near. I’ve had an interesting chat with a Yale student who’s traveled the world. His last trip was to Pakistan. He has a story to tell. I listen as I watch the driver stomp around the broken bus.
The Jubilee Line, London’s Tube, July 2005
She wasn’t trying to be friendly when she asked where they were from. She very well knew. She wasn’t curious when she asked why his wife’s face wasn’t hidden behind a black veil, why he didn’t have four wives. She couldn’t care less. She was the epitome of everyman. And she thrived on hate.
And yet, as us brown skinned cousins walked off the tube that day covered in indignation, we weren’t expecting to run into a friendly Londoner. He proved us wrong as life often does; went out of his way to help. Who was he, then?
A member of the minority, I thought as I tried to justify his act of kindness. He had opened the ticket machine to find our punched in ticket so we wouldn’t have to shell out more cash. What was it to him? It was a couple of quid at the end of the day. He helped anyway. And we were grateful for it.
At the foot of the Big Ben, July 26 (or thereabouts), 2005
I got to hear it chime today. It sounds like the Columbia Missouri clock tower; it looks like the Big Ben carved and gilded in gold.
Stomp, the last day of July 2005
They make music with non-musical things. And how.
Portobello Market, London, July 2005
I saw an ancient map today, dated 1826. It was a map of Hindoostan, and Pakistan wasn’t and Bombay was.
Today, on the first day of August 2005, Bombay almost isn’t.
What’s to become of my city?
Priori Road, London, August 3, 2005, 10 a.m.
Today’s Metro reads, “Faith hate crimes rise by 600%”
It was bound to happen.
Today…
On the eight day of the eighth month in the sixth year of the 21st century, I stood at longitude 0. The place where time begins for most of the world.
It felt much like any other longitude and I hurried home, knowing only too well that time waits for no man.
Columbia, Missouri, August 21, 2005
Tired and still on London time.
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