Bombay
I don’t like books that glorify India or any other journey
to any such “exotic” lands. After all I am from one such land not too far away
from India. So, let’s face away from the Gateway of India and all alike for now.
Let’s get to the rats. The dead ones. The smashed ones. The
ones whose eyes are being eaten by a savage hungry crow four times the size of
a normal crow.
You brought me here. You like life raw. I don’t. I like life
dressed up in beautiful colors and with a touch of makeup. I like life in a beautiful night dress and eyes covered with a sky of blue shadow above them right
underneath the eyebrows. I like nails polished with red, pink, purple or the
heck with it maybe even green. I like beautiful, yet plain, jewelry sets. I
like long dresses that bring out the curves and show them off to the world. I like a clean face with clear skin that shines against the
glow of sunshine. I like nicely done hair either updo or dancing all the way
below the shoulders. I like to color my lips with rosy lipstick. In my mind I was once a princess walking around in ballrooms with hundreds of people watching me in admiration.
I like to be the elite. You do, too. But you so naturally
and easily connect with anyone anywhere anyway. I don’t. I like to sit on the balcony of colonial buildings, sip on my
coffee and talk to a girl friend about the burdens of luxury. Once in
a while I put a few rupees in the hands of beautiful glowing beggar whose eyes are
wild, resentful, drunk, proud and lustful, and feel kindheartedly guilty as I pass them by.
To you rats are rats. Perhaps even born to be hit by cars and
eaten by crows. To me rats are ugly disgusting creatures that I want nothing to
do with. But, I can also cry for a rat whose eyes a crow joyously chews.
To you that kitten, whose beheaded body was lying on one side
of the back street next to our apartment and her head on the other, is life. To me the beheaded kitten is
death, is a sign of doomed life taken away prematurely.
To you, with all of your discipline, chaos is the
vein of life. To me chaos is the root cause of stress, of trauma, of unexpected
outcomes that I so passionately fear. You love unexpected outcomes. You find life
in them. I find death in them; loss perhaps.
To you life is the state of being. To me life is a
battlefield.
In a hundred years, I will shiver at the sight of every smashed rat. But, hey, after all crows crave some snacks once in a while and what better than a rat's eye?!
I love you and if you so happen to be in Bombay, I love Bombay, too.
I don’t like books that glorify India or any other journey
to any such “exotic” lands. After all I am from one such land not too far away
from India. So, let’s face away from the Gateway of India and all alike for now.
Let’s get to the rats. The dead ones. The smashed ones. The
ones whose eyes are being eaten by a savage hungry crow four times the size of
a normal crow.
You brought me here. You like life raw. I don’t. I like life
dressed up in beautiful colors and with a touch of makeup. I like life in a beautiful night dress and eyes covered with a sky of blue shadow above them right
underneath the eyebrows. I like nails polished with red, pink, purple or the
heck with it maybe even green. I like beautiful, yet plain, jewelry sets. I
like long dresses that bring out the curves and show them off to the world. I like a clean face with clear skin that shines against the
glow of sunshine. I like nicely done hair either updo or dancing all the way
below the shoulders. I like to color my lips with rosy lipstick. In my mind I was once a princess walking around in ballrooms with hundreds of people watching me in admiration.
I like to be the elite. You do, too. But you so naturally
and easily connect with anyone anywhere anyway. I don’t. I like to sit on the balcony of colonial buildings, sip on my
coffee and talk to a girl friend about the burdens of luxury. Once in
a while I put a few rupees in the hands of beautiful glowing beggar whose eyes are
wild, resentful, drunk, proud and lustful, and feel kindheartedly guilty as I pass them by.
To you rats are rats. Perhaps even born to be hit by cars and
eaten by crows. To me rats are ugly disgusting creatures that I want nothing to
do with. But, I can also cry for a rat whose eyes a crow joyously chews.
To you that kitten, whose beheaded body was lying on one side
of the back street next to our apartment and her head on the other, is life. To me the beheaded kitten is
death, is a sign of doomed life taken away prematurely.
To you, with all of your discipline, chaos is the
vein of life. To me chaos is the root cause of stress, of trauma, of unexpected
outcomes that I so passionately fear. You love unexpected outcomes. You find life
in them. I find death in them; loss perhaps.
To you life is the state of being. To me life is a
battlefield.
In a hundred years, I will shiver at the sight of every smashed rat. But, hey, after all crows crave some snacks once in a while and what better than a rat's eye?!
I love you and if you so happen to be in Bombay, I love Bombay, too.
4 Comments:
Dear Azadeh Pourzand, Sometimes it is good to be patient, even with blogs that seem to be abandoned for ever (like in your case). But then a marvellous new post emerges on them, like in this case about Bombay. Never been to India myself, but I have several colleagues, and although they all share the same passport, the stories they tell me from home are so different like the thoughts in face of dead animals of you and your indian friend.
Michael
If a person dies, its relatives mourn for him or her. If a child suffers from a fatal disease, the doctors and the parents fight for its life. If a living creature dies, it usually gets unnoticed, unless somebody as you writes about it. Rats are in fact rodents with much higher developed social interaction and emotional qualities than many other animals which are kept as pets. They are extremely careful with their babies, and they also can become very confident with humans. It is really a pitty they have such a bad reputation.
The only exception to my knowledge is a novel by Gunter Grass, called "The Rattes", in which he describes a femal rat as a representative of post-war feminism in Berlin, but also episodes of the story in Bombay.
There was a review about it in the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/12/19/specials/grass-rat.html), but my English is not as good to understand the undertones in it. But I liked the novel a lot.
regards
Michael
I wish your "YOU" understand you.
I wish your "YOU" is a loyal "YOU" who understands you.
Y.P
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