picking up the pieces
Some things are inevitable. Such as headaches on mornings after. The piercing guilt of an empty purse after a night at the city's highest-up bar with the bestest view. And heartache when much-loved spectres dissolve into the fog. Never fall in love with your own imagination and its creatures - so sayeth wendigo, wise woman of the east (or west?)
I have been wondering about my affiliations lately. London has become a good friend, never letting me get lost or mugged. She has also shown me splendid delights, some that i had dreamed of finding once i came to the most written-about-city-in-the-world. And some delectables I hadn't expected, some I wish I had never set eyes on, for they spoil you for reality. Yep, London has been good.
But what of Motherland? Where lies she... in the land where my mother lives? Surely, wherever Mum goes, part of my heart goes with her... (don't anyone tell her, she'll be shocked to the core!) Or the one where I grew up, pretty much in a bubble? Strangely, a Londonnish bubble, in a Dee-Vun flat in a colonial bungalow in Imperial New Delhi.
I may have an assimilation complex. Feels very good to have seedy English paper men call me 'love', as if i were pretty, blue-eyed blonde Polly in a mini-skirt. And feels bad to be asked by airport staff to convey to irritating gujju women blocking lines that they must fucking move, the cows! I fear I am more racist than most WASP types.
But even London may reject me soon, because of my skin colour or my accent, or prosaically, my Visa Status. When that happens, will I gladly go 'home' and try to use my new Urbaniste skills to solve the myriad problems there? Maybe it's a huge act I put on, to agitate against 'orientalism', against the marginalisation of status politics, just so that i can avoid writing diagnostic essays on time. My understanding of issues in the motherland is definitely inadequate, as I was recently reminded by certain greeks raving about other, most insightful Indians. So I'm not even upholding my honour as 'Indian Student', hard working, deep, and shouldering the burden of the voiceless masses.
So if I don't 'belong' here and I don't represent 'there', I must be a lost soul. Desperately in need of an aspirin, better still some prozac, even more some nooky, and best of all, luuuurve.
Mick Jagger was spot on - I can't get no-oh sa-tis-fac-tion
I have been wondering about my affiliations lately. London has become a good friend, never letting me get lost or mugged. She has also shown me splendid delights, some that i had dreamed of finding once i came to the most written-about-city-in-the-world. And some delectables I hadn't expected, some I wish I had never set eyes on, for they spoil you for reality. Yep, London has been good.
But what of Motherland? Where lies she... in the land where my mother lives? Surely, wherever Mum goes, part of my heart goes with her... (don't anyone tell her, she'll be shocked to the core!) Or the one where I grew up, pretty much in a bubble? Strangely, a Londonnish bubble, in a Dee-Vun flat in a colonial bungalow in Imperial New Delhi.
I may have an assimilation complex. Feels very good to have seedy English paper men call me 'love', as if i were pretty, blue-eyed blonde Polly in a mini-skirt. And feels bad to be asked by airport staff to convey to irritating gujju women blocking lines that they must fucking move, the cows! I fear I am more racist than most WASP types.
But even London may reject me soon, because of my skin colour or my accent, or prosaically, my Visa Status. When that happens, will I gladly go 'home' and try to use my new Urbaniste skills to solve the myriad problems there? Maybe it's a huge act I put on, to agitate against 'orientalism', against the marginalisation of status politics, just so that i can avoid writing diagnostic essays on time. My understanding of issues in the motherland is definitely inadequate, as I was recently reminded by certain greeks raving about other, most insightful Indians. So I'm not even upholding my honour as 'Indian Student', hard working, deep, and shouldering the burden of the voiceless masses.
So if I don't 'belong' here and I don't represent 'there', I must be a lost soul. Desperately in need of an aspirin, better still some prozac, even more some nooky, and best of all, luuuurve.
Mick Jagger was spot on - I can't get no-oh sa-tis-fac-tion
Comments
redemption coming your way, at least for a week or two.
yours truly,
Mexico-bound.
dear redemption, i bought mulled wine for us. come soon.