Mumbai. People say this city hardens you, and I’m still not sure if that’s true or just something you say to get through its hazing. After a month here, I’ve been collecting a small survival guide. These are the non-rituals that keep me soft.
1. Scooty rides
Uber Scooty or Rapido- whatever you can hail. Enough velocity to slip through traffic and thought. On the back of a bike, the city reveals itself sideways: drivers cursing at someone unseen, full conversations flung into the wind. Dust replaces oxygen; my hair turns to straw. Women wrap scarves across their faces like a faux niqab. My immune system should thank me for the sheer volume of airborne particles I’m inhaling.
2. Wired headphones
Especially useful on the scooty. Volume high enough that your phone warns you about tinnitus. It’s emo and adolescent, but mostly nostalgic. Here’s this morning’s song:
3. A poem called “Telephone Conversation”
Written in 1962, but it could have been yesterday. A colonial hangover in this “city of dreams.” Soyinka helps me metabolize the absurdity of housing discrimination. I read this poem the way people take antacids- it soothes what the city won’t digest.
“Telephone Conversation” by Wole Soyinka (b. 1934)
The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off-premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. ‘Madam’ , I warned,
‘I hate a wasted journey – I am African.’
Silence. Silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.
‘HOW DARK?’…I had not misheard….’ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?’ Button B. Button A. Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar.
It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfounded to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis-
‘ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT’ Revelation came
‘You mean- like plain or milk chocolate?’
Her accent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted
I chose. ‘West African sepia’_ and as afterthought.
‘Down in my passport.’ Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness chaged her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece ‘WHAT’S THAT?’ conceding ‘DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.’ ‘Like brunette.’
‘THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?’
‘Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but madam you should see the rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet.
Are a peroxide blonde. Friction, caused-
Foolishly madam- by sitting down, has turned
My bottom raven black- One moment madam! – sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears- ‘Madam,’ I pleaded, ‘wouldn’t you rather
See for yourself?
4. Fruit
Custard apple (sitaphal): decayed exterior, white flesh, glossy seeds. Pale green sugarcane juice with foam on top. Peeling a pomegranate for a stranger is a labor of love, and fruit as dessert feels holy.
5. Silver jewelry
Oxidized earrings that swell and scar my ears. I wear them anyway. Ancient, a little dusty when I buy them, like they were unearthed from a forgotten tomb. BYOL: bring your own Lysol.
6. HIT
A red bottle of cockroach killer (200 ml). In Mumbai, my truest roommate is the cockroach. I’ve learned its choreography: sink pipes, fridge corners, dark crevices. The smaller they are, the faster they run. I have been pushed into a new, bizarre form of intimacy: just me and the cockroach, trying to coexist.
In this period of transition, I’m practicing surrender. For now, I live somewhere between sugarcane foam and cockroach diplomacy. Progress, I think.
References
Soyinka, Wole. “Telephone Conversation.” ENGL 202: Spring 2000, Kansas State University, www.k-state.edu/english/westmank/spring_00/SOYINKA.html
