Free-Writing 105 – Suburban Mumbai 8.34 pm – Part 2

There were kittens. Kittens right in front of the kids. And they weren’t running away. The kittens, that is. They couldn’t, even if they wanted to. They were tiny and they were with their mother.

What was more worrying was that the kids were playing football. One careless hit will be good enough to knock the kittens dead. But they didn’t care. Either that or that they were immensely confident about their skills with the ball or the kittens’ survival skills.

The other adults walked past this bizarre scene without a care. They had lives to fret about, phones to listen to, and worries to walk off. All types of younglings weren’t appealing unless they were direct results of their procreations.

This is the city. This is the chaos. A miniature representation of everything that made it attractive and repulsive at the same time.

His nose felt heavier than the rest of the body. It’s amazing how a bunch of submicroscopic life can bring an obviously macroscopic organism down. He made sure that he kept himself away from everyone else.

No touching thing. No touching people. He was the epitome of modern hygiene conventions. Or that’s what he wanted to believe in.

Where had he picked it up? Or where had they picked him up? Probably an airport. He’s been traveling a lot. Too much for his liking, but work was like that.

He enjoyed work, the stuff that he did to make ends meet. His real passion was in the arts, but that doesn’t pay the bills. He wanted to believe otherwise, but life had reaffirmed the fact.

He fished out the phone. He stopped on the side of the walkway to make sure that he wasn’t getting in the way of the busy people who spent time in the park. He found the number he wanted to dial. He dialed. Then he hung up. He hoped that it wouldn’t be registered as a missed call.

He wasn’t lucky.

Free-Writing 105 – Suburban Mumbai 8.34 pm – Part 1

“Whatever you do, don’t call me.”

He had hung up because he could do nothing else. There was a finality to it. Harshness is a matter of perception, someone had told him once. Although he didn’t believe everything that he was told, there seemed to be more truth to this statement than some others.

The children were noisier today. He disliked children in general, especially the noisy ones. Having recently read some heavy Hitchens prose taking down religion citing evolution as the evidence, he wanted to believe in the latter, but children and their behavior were proof enough against it. So gullible, always attracting attention to yourself. Never giving themselves any chance of survival.

He continued to walk westward on the sidewalk, trying to find a place where he could sit and have something. Something hot. Something to soothe his throat.

Summer or not, he liked his drinks cold. Everything except water. And beer, of course. But right now he wanted something hot. A coffee? Too late for it. A hot chocolate. Belgian, if he gets lucky. He wondered how far away from Belgium he was. Far enough to be halfway around the world.

When did it start getting worse? A month ago? More than that, surely. The last time he remembered having a good time with her around was when he still had a job.

Wait, that can’t have been the reason she liked me, could it? he thought. He idealized women in general, especially when he fell in love with them. He hadn’t needed too many days to want to be with her, but then it hadn’t lasted. He hated being shut down, but he also realized that he didn’t have any reason to go against her wishes.

So he walked along for a few more minutes until he saw the coffee shop. He decided to run through his options once more and walked in.

Free-writing 104 – 6.25 pm, Colaba – Part 4 – Sol-lly Landscape

There is an orange blob slightly to the right of the center. It would move if you would, in perspective alone, because it is bigger than you can imagine. If you looked hard enough–and only if you could–you would make out the outline of the blob. But then everything else would become dark.

Now if you didn’t look hard, you could see a magnificent color gradient from the reds to the blues around the blob. Someone has done a masterful job at mixing colors, but I think the real mastery is in choosing the laws that govern the colors.

Let’s say if you looked away from the blob, as far away as you could see, I would imagine you finding it difficult to point to the place where the blues became the greys. Mastery at work everywhere. Let’s just assume that the painting that I’m describing has no real limits. Because the blob is toward the right of the center, the left side has more blue greys. Because of the chosen perspective, the obvious evidence of life is more toward the right.

Shades of darker grey, brown, silver, and other shiny stuff rise and fall craggily from a line that seems to separate the reds from the blue greys. The noise of life, in colors, everywhere. They get progressively emboldened as they get away from the blob. They feel more at peace, maybe more at home, below the line.

Whatever motion remains in their creations seems to be at random. There must been some other force at play here, but we don’t have time to go into its details. Life has chosen to traverse the blue greys, and their apparent flatness, toward the blob in oblong creations with sharp edges but rounded outlines. These are of various sizes. All the other shapes, predominated by triangles and rectangles, attached to the creations dance to the forces that we don’t have time to pore over.

The blob is brash. So it imposes itself on the blue-greys. It mellows down toward the sides, but the blob casts its effect that gently expands as it makes its way to the observer.

Someone was audacious enough to fly too close to the blog and to destroy the painting. A squiggly line with sharp corners. Thin and recent. This kind of artifact piques one’s curiosity. What’s the source? How dare it show itself to the blob?

The blob moves ever so slightly. It falls, in fact. It might be losing a battle. The blue greys are winning. They will prevail until the time the blob comes back to impose itself. It’s a cycle, and the real winner is the cycle.

Free-writing 104 – 6.25 pm, Colaba – Part 3 – The Vista

There is a point in my walking path where the sea and the city converge. If a kite were to look at it, it would notice that the convexity of the city is forced, and the sea seems to have been broken in. Remind you of something? Mumbai and its history, perhaps?

The reason why I bring this up is that I saw something spectacular. The sun was setting. Maybe about 15 minutes from going down below the horizon. If you stood on the streets on the other side, in between the vehicles zipping up and down, you could see glimpses of the old Mumbai.

Fishing boats, shacks, fishing nets, hovels, larger boats moored farther away from the beach, fisher people, shops, and stalls–everything that the little coastal archipelago was once before the rich made it into an island city.

You are allowed to feel sad. It is this community that has been misplaced, displaced, and replaced by people like me. Coming in from all parts of India. Chasing glory, success, and freedom. Thus usurping everything from the natives. This too reminds you of something else, doesn’t it? The history of human civilization.

Free-writing 104 – 6.25 pm, Colaba – Part 2 -Wear Red to Get Looked At

I was wearing something audacious. A tight black t-shirt with bold text of a music equipment brand. I got it as a free add-on when I had made custom pedal boards which I hardly use. I was thin then, and the small size made me look better. I’m not as thin now, but I’m not overweight either. I think I have filled up a bit in the right places, but also a bit in the wrong ones. I’m forty-five, you see. Things are not easy when you go past twenty-seven. That is–if you make it past that age.

Jay’s place is a bit of a mess. It’s always been like that, and it has only gotten worse if it could ever get worse. I have a little stash of clothes in one of the cupboards. A couple of T-shirts, a shirt, some shorts, and some lungis, and underwear. The problem, however, is that Jay’s house help almost always messes things up. So after having spent about fifteen minutes to get my running shorts and the running band (the thing that is not quite a fanny pack but is something like it), I gave up. I chose a pair of red swimming trunks that could look like shorts if you didn’t pay attention to what you were looking at.

So what I’m trying to say is that I stood out. And I was looking at things and people who looked at me. Many eyes went under my waist. I was wearing briefs under the shorts, which must have prevented even more eyes from zooming in. On my walk, my eyes met with others’ and although all exchanges were momentary, I had enough time to paint a picture. With words.

A man, probably in his early fifties, with his golden Labrador, walking him semi-reluctantly in the park. I thought he was my type until I saw his profile, which revealed that his skull was deeper than my preference. I have nothing against people with deeper skulls, but the ones with a prominent forehead, nose, and jawline generally have held my attention more than a cup of coffee. He looked at me briefly. What had caught my attention was his curly hair and spectacles. A decent hairline with long-vision spectacles is a great combo if you are interested in older men. Generally, this means that they are going to smile with their eyes. Don’t ask me how.

He turned around and walked away, and I noticed the kids playing in the park.

This park–in the complex where Jay’s apartment is–is not somewhere that I can comfortably go for recreation. Despite the progressive nature of the ethnic group that Jay belongs to, the rent-controlled apartment complex and housing societies for those from the ethnicity are not friendly to individuals of alternative sexual orientation and hence are unfriendly to their partners. I noticed a few women, mostly nannies and helps, with their patrons doing things around the swings, seesaws, and the limited exercise equipment. On the other side, there was outdoor seating, occupied almost exclusively by older men. They were sitting next to the pavilion, where a few waiters were going about doing their business.

I turned the corner, which brought me in view of the small back gate. This part of my path is lined on either side by parked cars and beautiful flowers on the small patches of gardens. Behind some cars and flowers stood three men, one of whom was a security guard who was supposed to not let strangers enter the society. It’s a gated community, but it’s less gated than many others. The other two men must have been either local visitors or drivers.

As soon as you step out of the complex through that small gateway, which has an iron rod planted in the middle of the breadth to prevent small two-wheelers from entering the complex, you enter a different universe. Because you enter a slum that houses many of the helps, nannies, and other workers.

You need to walk on a narrow path flanked on one side by the compound wall of the complex and the slum housing on the other side. On it, I saw three women, each of them holding their phones and being buried in the screens. A little girl ran out of the first doorway. She had a look of steely determination. She seemed to have been told to do something that she didn’t quite like but when done might get her something nice. The door that she walked out through revealed blue walls and harsh white lightning, and a figure, who must have instructed the girl, moving out of my sight as I walked past it.

I walk along, and I can see the open courtyard type of space. It is littered with chairs, makeshift beds, and mattresses where men (and boys) of many shapes and sizes lounge around. There seems to be a clear gender divide here, but it may not have been imposed by one gender. Things just drifted to their present state, probably because women preferred the little privacy that the path offered.

Toward the right of the courtyard is the actual gate that lets you out into the street. That is also small but without the iron rod. The slum dwellers bring their two-wheelers in. This gate is also usually adorned by a couple of cats, who wait for customers to drop them some food from a couple of shops located on the footpaths. That’s where I saw the black cat.

The slum dwellers generally don’t make eye contact with you. I suppose they are told not to. By the community members. You see, the caste system might not exist in theory, but every little ounce of India is infused by it. I find myself to be on either side of the problem. My origins are the upper caste, but in the gated community, I’m the scum. Outside of such communities, in the streets of India, my caste rules. And I hate it both ways.

Once you enter the hustle and bustle of traffic in Cuffe Parade, there is too much noise to signal for any mindfulness. If one trains, and if one stops, maybe you can observe something intently. As I walked down, several pairs of eyes went below my crotch. Those who did seem to be individuals who were returning to their homes after their evening walks or runs. I suppose the worker population thronging the streets couldn’t care too much about how I looked because I looked different and they did not bother to quantify or qualify the difference. The more affluent walkers, however, found me different from them and had the time and the need to flesh out the difference. Darker skin, taller build, thinner, wearing fashionable earphones. Clearly doesn’t belong. Clearly a threat.

Among those who did, the women never dared to look back up into my eyes. A couple of men, both of them middle-aged, did. I looked at them. They seemed to be sorry. Sorry for having looked, sorry about their lives, wanting love. I moved along.

Free-writing 104 – 6.25 pm, Colaba – Part 1 – The Cats

There are cats everywhere, but the ones that grab my attention are a pure black one with orange eyes and the three-legged one next to the tiny store on the sidewalk.

The Black Cat

The former is regal in appearance and alert. She, because I think it is a she, perks up as soon as I whistle at her. She doesn’t move because she would rather not move. She is young, and she is being fed by someone.

The Three-Legged Cat

He is an old flame of mine. I saw him first a year or so ago on one of my walks from Jay’s apartment to the park where I go for a walk/run. It was only a few months after my surgery, and I wasn’t ready to start running.

It was during that time that I discovered the joys of mindfulness walking. I aimed to capture the world around me with my senses–primarily vision and audition, and maybe a hint of olfaction–and transfer them to either words or sketches. I’m not very good at the latter (yet), and so words are my preferred means of expression.

I found him first–he’s a he because he seems wizened on the stockier side–when he appeared from under the stall and slowly walked over to the edge of the sidewalk to sit. There was a hint of rain in the air. It must have been mid-June.

I was undecided to feel sorry for him to have lost a leg sometime in his tumultuous past, or to feel happy for him to have a home. This city can be cruel. It is cruel, especially if you don’t buy the spirit of Mumbai crap for everything that is wrong with it.

Today I found him chilling in a parking space in between a car and a row of two-wheelers. Actually, it’s not really a parking space. It’s just the side of a relatively broad two-lane road that becomes cramped because of the sides being taken up by parked vehicles.

You see, Mumbai is suffocatingly congested. Everyone fights for space and because no one except the ultra-rich or the ultra-powerful can win, they invade the spaces of others. Mumbai does not have social distancing because of its nature. No wonder it bore the brunt of the pandemic a few years back.

This time around, I didn’t make eye contact with the owner of the stall. I briefly considered stepping onto the road to pet him but decided against it because I was getting late, and I had two other cats to take care of.

I hadn’t seen them yet, which is why I didn’t bring them up before. I knew I would. One of them is Casper. It’s a she because we know that she is, and Jay is trying to foster her by feeding her to health after an eye injury. The other one, a smaller she with a belly full of kittens, is competing with Casper. And winning. We are trying to find solutions to this space encroachment.

Even cats in Mumbai are mean in terms of letting others live.

Free Writing 103 – 9.50 pm Bangkok Airport

It’s noisy out here, but it wasn’t a mere moments ago. I’m waiting for my plane out of Bangkok to Mumbai.

It’s noisy only when it rains Indians. Honestly, Indians have to be the most annoying travelers. Loud, brash, and an utter disregard for the personal space of others. Sounds like this is inbuilt to a place I know intimately.

Mumbai, ever heard of it? Yes, that’s where I live. And I belong to that place. I have lived 24 years in Kerala (Thiruvananthapuram) and now I’m living my 21st year in Mumbai. I’m a Mumbaikar. So I suppose I belong to the group that I find annoying.

If you spend time scrolling through Reddit, you’ll find people who voice opinions like mine being trolled. I laugh with them. I laugh at myself. But it is difficult.

Project Hail Mary is unexpectedly entertaining. It’s my second Andy Weir book (after The Martian), and I recently read in an NY Times newsletter that it has a refreshing take on a first-contact story. I have to agree that it does, but I’m not sure if I’m totally down with the friendly alien trope. But then again, we haven’t read too many of those.

You know why I like older men? They seem like they are hiding secrets. Secrets about the world, secrets about themselves, secrets about you, and so forth. For all leanings toward the political left, the older men who look like (or display characteristics of) right learnings often are more attractive from this point of view.

Not only are such men likely to openly advocate against M2M relationships, they seem like they are likely to enjoy them more. When you break the rules, it is more exciting. They take this to another level. Believe in a whole universe of questionable truths to make the breaking of rules more exciting.

I have been traveling with a wonderful colleague. I’m going to call her NA. It’s not* applicable* or not available or simply naa, if you must know. She’s incredible for a variety of reasons, but the latest one is more special. She’s frikkin’ reading a Richard Dawkins book. How cool is that?

As I’m typing these ins, she’s reading it, sitting across me in the waiting area near our departure gate. The funny thing is that she’s one of the six women I can see, and by far the quietest. Also, she’s sitting among those right-leaning men, some of whom, I’m sure they are in Bangkok to sin.

It’s time! To shut shop. At least until after boarding. I wish Bruce Buffer will announce it.

Free-writing 102 – Part 5

I have nice silhouette to sketch. It’s nice because it has spectacles in it. Lines are nice for a novice. Lines are nice for everyone. Especially if you can do them.

—

I’m going to take a break at a thousand. A thousand what? Minutes? Kilometers? Nice, I burned up a few just be going all meta about it. Now I’m left with sixteen. She was too, sometime in the past, and I know because I saw her standing there.