Friday, May 23, 2014

The Humid Metropolis

I lived my childhood in a humid metropolis. I’m sure you folks sitting on this side of paradise have heard about my hometown so I won’t name it, because I want you to imagine a very sticky place- richer than your imported glues. A place with perhaps so much gravity that everything gets stuck badly, except for the glues beneath your skin. The pitiable sea-close tropical clime makes you all drowsy, even in the night.

When I was young and evil, my mother used to cook us rice in a steel pressure-cooker and it surprised me that even after eating a fair amount of that soporific fodder my father always made it to the local government hospital to cut people open with his shiny scalpel-
and mostly save them.

My childhood remains a big scrapbook of rice induced drowsiness coupled with sweat-stained mischiefs which we fondly called 'dushtumi' (this was adulthood?).

My city is poor. Everything’s cheaper you know, fancy restaurants are cheaper, transportation is cheaper, private tuition is cheaper- except for maybe human life but it’s in the best interest of the world that perhaps people fail to notice that. I agree with poets, who say it has a large heart.

Sentimentality without action brings ruin, but I am leaving that out for another chapter. When I was young, I used to torture kittens estranged from their mother cats. I fondly remember this one kitten whom I immersed in a bucket and helped it embrace hydrophobia. I was an evil child. I was perhaps an abomination to the larger order of my city you know-

bigheartedness, sentimentality and all those anti-boorish camaraderie.

I told you about the sticky weather of my city and perhaps it was the reason for all our sinful dallies- all that involved rubbing and getting stuck. It would surprise you even more, if I told you that the tortured kitten got stuck with me and became a cat and never wandered away. I have always been wary of my city-
it makes impassive cats get stuck with impassive evil human children. (Torture doesn’t induce emotions of passiveness, I surmise.)

I love my hometown- sticky and lovely.
Perhaps lovely because it’s sticky.
A place that never lets you go is a place that is never worth leaving.
My parents would know this better.

No comments: