Livinghigh
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Livinghigh was here at 5:59 PM /



So tempting

So tempting to badmouth this city now , as I have been doing since yesterday. Never thought a pinch in my pockets could affect me so badly - here comes the mercenary, so all rise.. trumpets blare, eyes glare - money money money/ must be funny/ in a rich man's world... But even ABBA could hardly have foreseen the way I tossed and turned in bed last night, hours after I decided to trade in a sullen silence awake for a sullen doze lying prostrate in bed.

So tempting to badmouth this city, and its crowded, congested streets, teeming, teeming with people, running about helter skelter. Was walking through rush-hour Bombay stations, and something reminded me of a remark by somebody whose name I cannot (for the life of me) recall - about all those millions rushing past, one eyeball firmly fixed on watch, one eye on the ground so as not to lose footing and trip and thereby waste more time - rush, rush, rush (not Paula Abdul style)... and inevitably, I found myself this morning also looking down at my wrist watch.

So tempting to badmouth this city, when I recall flooded S V Road, after just an hour's shower, and open drains, and clustered stones on broken pavements and Dharavi shanties. Whoops - I'm a journalist, something tells me - I'm supposed to be sympathetic to people's woes and poverty, and shanty towns are supposed to be my avowed project to raise human dignity. But I do not want to live near a shanty town, and hell, I'd be a hypocrite if I said otherwise.

So tempting to badmouth this city, when I recall Lutyens' masterpiece, with green avenues and Connaught Place and .... sigh.


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