A Letter from India - Part I

Home again. I'd expected big changes - but nothing seems to have changed much. The last time I came here, I was shocked at the general infiltration of MacReebok. This time, there are no new horrors skulking on the horizon - no new malls - and so I suppose there is less awareness of change. But an insidiously unpeaceful feeling is still buzzing in the background of the streets. At first, it's hard to get a feel of. People look happy, shopping with their families. Some stores are even open late - well past dark - and this makes shopping-dinner-movie evenings possible. Great. Good stuff. There are also a slew of new cars to carry people from their new apartments straight to the mall. And tonnes of mobile phones on every corner. There are huge hoardings patchwork-quilting the sky. And everywhere, there are people. A press of people. A throng. A herd. A multitude. A crowd. And it is always moving, this crowd. Ceaselessly. At night, sleepless from jetlag or heartache or both, I can hear the sound of cars and motorbikes. Used to be, I could only hear the odd truck punctuating the sound of crickets from my garden. It used to make me feel like I lived in a border town, somewhere remote and Faraway from everything. Somewhere exotic (only the very naive imagine border towns to be exotic, I was once told. Maybe I am very naive indeed, because I find them utterly beautiful. Exquisite, even.)

Used to be, I knew trees on street corners. Used to be, I could see stars even as I walked down a street in the middle of the city at night. Now, they only appear in the sky after I get back to my house - because we live in the middle of no-light. We have kept the stars, and they gather shyly in the dark above my house. I'm so grateful. So, so grateful for that.

Randomly, and therefore perhaps not quite accurately, these are now the symbols of our success, as I see them pinned, plastered and painted everywhere: Gold palm trees inside malls; the Sphinx; Napoleon and Caesar; Neon; Sex; Noise; New Stores Selling Gloss. It is as if we are all racing towards the places adorned with these symbols because they represent our arrival. We've seen, we've conquered. So what if we have no interest in actually going to Egypt, we can bring the sphinx here. And it can sit outside our multicoloured mall, guarding it. We can put our cigarettes out on its nose. We came, we saw, we acquired.

A part of me is delighted. Another part is appalled. I want no part in this. I want a part in it. The speed is thrilling. The speed is sickening. There are so many people, out on these streets, at night, and they're all (okay, I exaggerate: most of them) are wearing such pretty clothes! But no one is looking at me, no one is seeing me standing here. And I am not seeing them either. We are all simply aware of the press of nameless faceless sexless people, thronging around us, mutual architects of this sense of buzz. The unmistakable smell of a big city on the move. For the first time, I'm lonely on these streets. The lights are so bright. The glare is blinding. But most of all: There are so many people here. I'm so lonely.

Thank God, at least above my house, the stars still shine.