Just back from a whirlwind tour of three cities. One a spice county, another, a city of/for misfits and (lately) for women with a penchant for French caps, and the third a New York City parallel.
Boarding an electric train is the equivalent of a martial art move. No matter what the electronic display reads, the approach of a train is truly felt only by the sudden tension in the air, a gathering up of people in knots. One foot forward and necks craned to see the train. Then one foot backwards. The train comes in, one huge wailing monster, mingling the stench of the platform with the stench on the train. It’s all the same, come to think of it. It’s all rotting human spirit, desire. Even greed. But it’s beautiful, this acceptance of one’s fate. No, not fate. This state of being content with the Present. This audacity to hope and hang on. The women wait at the exact spot on the platform for the Ladies’ Compartment, jostling each other ever so slightly. No one really minds here.
Then lunge for the train. Run run run! Run if you don’t want to be pushed down, run if you don’t want to be left behind, run if you want a seat. I just blindly run behind my friend, following her exact movements to the few empty seats inside the train. Later, comfortably seated amidst baskets of potatoes and Chikkoos, she explains to me the techniques of train travel. In the summer, sit in the direction of the train’s movement; you get the wind on your face. In the winter, sit on the other side; you don’t want to catch a cold. Don’t laugh; every single waft of breeze matters. Always run.
Victoria Terminus, looking like a grand old lady. We’re thirsty, so we drink kokkam juice, a reddish-brown tamarind drink; for 3 rupees. You can live a good life for cheap here. Then walk down on the road by St. Xavier’s College. We take a detour to their Rang Bhavan. We don’t know if we’re allowed in there, Just Appear Confident, she says.
Further down the road, through dimly lit street-shops of pirated CDs, pendants that say Marijuana, ties for ten rupees, perfume, and fake art.
Did you know, they had the booksellers at the Churchgate station removed! Now there’s empty pavement where there used to be books. She looked left, she looked right, she looked lost. Arrey, but they used to be right here! We feel down and out, so we buy a Vada-paav for five rupees (This is some people’s one meal, she says), and sit on a low brick wall, our backs to the sea; one infinite blue burning mirror.
A man wearing four shirts (all open in the front) and a red tie walks on the wall, past us. Then he walks back. Only, this time he bends over her to trail a white flower down her cheek. We scream and jump, brown Vada paav on brown mud. The man laughs at us, laughs at the sea, and stands there on the wall, against the sky, shirts and hair flying, arms outstretched like he were Christ, like he was blessing the traffic, like this bit of sky, water and woman’s cheek was his kingdom.