slowly coming to terms with the fact that my time in india is up. and i think to myself: how will i ever leave this place?
on the other hand, i think my rain dance worked, since today, we have a preview of the impending monsoon. soothing calming assuaging pitter patter monday here in this mad and beautiful city.
i lay this morning wondering: when does the peeling end and the healing begin?
ever since returning from the beaches of goa, my skin has been peeling at an alarming rate. no matter what i do to avoid accelerating this peeling process, it has been shedding as if to make a reptilian go green with envy.
i have a nightly routine of applying the following: aloe vera, coconut butter, calamine lotion. repeat. and during the day, i liberally lather on neutrogena’s ultra light no sheer spf 35 sunscreen. i have never liberally lather on any form of sunblock. ever. and this is coming from someone who has lived along the west coast for most of her life.
growing up, sun was always something to anticipate, to celebrate , to make the most of; the sun was your best friend. there was never the slip-slop-slap culture of australia (“slip on a shirt, slap on sunscreen, and slap on a hat”), but the casual disregard for causal links between being exposed to the sun and the occurrence of skin ailments.
(i remember the first time that “skin disease” entered my impressionable consciousness was when our one and only bill clinton underwent a surgery for a suspicious looking mole. or something like it.)
i have always prided myself in being solar-powered, in embracing with humility, the annual march of the freckles across my face, concentrating on the nose, charging on to my shoulders and my arms.
and yet, the cruel goan uv rays have betrayed my blind faith in the sun. now, my bum glows when we go skinny dipping, reminding all of much fairer and innocent days.
sigh. back to aloe.
On the north end of humid balmy lovely Bombay, there lies a leafy suburb called Bandra. It is on the northern end of the Worli Sea Link (a bridge named after Rajiv Gandhi), and is home to artists, writers, directors, and the like. It has been described to me as the San Francisco of Bombay, and I suspect there are pockets that show promise of becoming the Brooklyn of Bandra too (which begs the question: is it possible for a city to be the New York of India with enclaves that are called the San Francisco of Bombay with smaller neighbourhoods with the reputation of being the Beverley Hills of Bandra?).
It may not be as clean as South Bombay (rickshaw-wallas reign supreme here and the fume from their exhaust-pipes pollute and suffocate), and it is painfully far if you are looking up from the causeways of Colaba. But here, you can go shopping at export-reject shops (Topshop! H&M! Zara!) wearing camisoles and leggings, stopping only to snack on pani-puris, polish off that sweet lassi before hopping into a rickshaw to drive along the seawall on your way to pick up delicious clams and oysters for dinner (likely mercury-laden, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too) before stopping by a friend’s flat for a nightcap. Everything seems within reach, nothing seems impossible, and I am certain that everyone knows everyone else. If I ever move to Bombay (insh’allah), this is surely where I will call home. Never mind the outrageous rental market, if I can find a broom closet that won’t cost me an arm and two legs, I will be as happy as a clam.
The Tardeo neighbourhood of Bombay is home to Imperial Tower, the world’s highest residential building. The municipal by-law stipulates that all development that comes at the cost of existing slums include a rehabilitation area. In a perverse twist of real estate genius, the developers decided to stipulate the first 20 floors as slum rehab, while keeping the 21+ floors as luxury condo space. When I retell this story, many Indians have a so what response, and the British tell me that this has been an age-old practice London. I remain in awe.
i decided to stay in bombay for the month of may. (to be precise, turkish airlines decided on my behalf by not having any empty seats back home)
the heavy burden of to-be-made-decisions that i carried with me from goa to bombay has lifted, and i am again in the blissful bubble of bandra.
i am so excited to make the most of my stay here. to write to read to explore to photograph to meet to join forces with to share to ask big questions to relish in little things to get into something of a routine to make this place my home for a little while longer.
and just as i am about to declare that i’ve never been happier, i think to myself, hold on a minute, let’s not get ahead of ourselves; you HAVE been happier before, but this is up there with all the other never been happier moments of my almost quarter-of-a-century existence.
and so the glass proves, once again, to be half full.
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