I leave Mumbai and return to Chicago in just a few days, and I am really dreading it. I've been thinking about how much this place has become part of me in a way that I can't really explain to my friends in the US. Even people who have visited India have generally come either for a few weeks as tourists or for work, and I feel like I've gone beyond that point now, so that Mumbai has started feeling just a little bit like home now (though it's complicated, because my body and my brain are still so American). People in the US are thinking about Pinterest and Republican candidate debates, and while I'm sort of keeping up with things there (thanks to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart), my mind and my heart would really rather be in India. I'm involuntarily using the Indian side-to-side head nod. I'm craving fresh lime soda and Sunny's Kerala-style beef fry and chikki and berry pulav and kala jamun and tender coconut juice and clam sukha and Goa Portuguesa's amazing pork and Theobroma's cherry cheesecake and Moshe's lemongrass cooler and Rustom's wafer ice cream and Tea Centre's Darjeeling and scones with cream and so many more things. I want to get carried away shopping at the Kohlapuri chappal stalls on the road in Bandra and Colaba. I want to spend hours sifting through the beautiful fabrics of Fabindia in Kala Ghoda. I want to dance and sing ridiculous songs with Ayeshea. I want to sit by the sea on Marine Drive at sunset with my guy at least once a week. I want to ride with him in a taxi from Colaba to Chembur at 11:30 pm, when the traffic has finally died down and we can soar across the JJ Flyover with the windows down and the cool night air blowing smog-filled air against our faces. I want to wake up next to him to the sounds of engines and honking that mean we've slept in and the city is up and running without us. This is, after all, the city where we met, where we fell in love, and the only one that has been, in some sense, a home for both of us.
It feels like there's so much more for me here. I want to learn more Hindi now that I recognize more of the words that I hear people using in conversation. I know how to get where I want to go and how to get there, for the most part, and I know how much it should cost, so I can argue with cab drivers when they misidentify me as a clueless tourist. My eyes aren't feeling as overstimulated as they used to when I visited in the past - the open air grocery stores and medical stores and barber shops look normal, the apartment buildings look welcoming and home-like instead of standing out in contrast to the buildings in Chicago. The poor are still shockingly poor, but they're not only that - they are just people, in a way that it was hard for me to process before. That is, they're not just objects of pity but part of the 20,000,000-plus-piece always-moving human puzzle that is Mumbai. I have first world problems (http://first-world-problems.com/) but also laugh at how ridiculous they are. I want to have more conversations with Mumbaikars of various backgrounds about their experiences, worldviews, and opinions on current events. I want my two worlds to collide so that I can have them both and don't have to miss one of them so terribly all of the time.
It feels like there's so much more for me here. I want to learn more Hindi now that I recognize more of the words that I hear people using in conversation. I know how to get where I want to go and how to get there, for the most part, and I know how much it should cost, so I can argue with cab drivers when they misidentify me as a clueless tourist. My eyes aren't feeling as overstimulated as they used to when I visited in the past - the open air grocery stores and medical stores and barber shops look normal, the apartment buildings look welcoming and home-like instead of standing out in contrast to the buildings in Chicago. The poor are still shockingly poor, but they're not only that - they are just people, in a way that it was hard for me to process before. That is, they're not just objects of pity but part of the 20,000,000-plus-piece always-moving human puzzle that is Mumbai. I have first world problems (http://first-world-problems.com/) but also laugh at how ridiculous they are. I want to have more conversations with Mumbaikars of various backgrounds about their experiences, worldviews, and opinions on current events. I want my two worlds to collide so that I can have them both and don't have to miss one of them so terribly all of the time.
1 comment:
If you are loving Mumbai so much this time around, is a permanent move in your future?
Post a Comment