Tuesday, May 25, 2004
today is a good day. good because i’ve turned off most of the auto-correct nonsense on microsoft word- no more irritating auto-caps rubbish that makes my nostrils flare when i’m trying to write some poetry and the damn thing keeps springing up capital A’s and I’s like some kind of rabid computer weed. daddy brought home a techno filter wala jug. the jug’s rather interesting in its techno art-deco kind of way and the water is all shiny clean but it tastes weird now. i think we’re all just used to the taste of all kinds of unknown things floating around in our water keh now clean water tastes like the smell of a new car (a smell i’ve never liked, for whatever reason). which brings me to what i mean to say. today went to the bazaar with mum and sana and we were tramping along in the dust and heat and rickshas (i am not going to put a ‘w’ in that word now, it’s too angrez. we don’t day rickshauuww, we say rickshaaa nice and snappy) and piles of rubble and orange peel and suspicious puddles-in-corners when sana commented on the smell of it all in a wonderfully succinctly descriptive Urdu word that i will not use here because noone knows what it means (i love being a language snob, it gives me big, evil kicks) (i learnt a lubly new word sunday evening, my parents come up with total gems and my ears prick- baunthra hua. means to be flustered, surprised, taken aback. Punjabi, not Urdu, apparently. rowr) baharal. what is a bazaar without the smells? the garbage and the cow poop and the traffic and tikkay wala and the way heat smells? what point is there in a bazaar if it isn’t noisy and dirty and crammed with all kinds of people and colours and constant activity? a bazaar is such an adventure if you really think about it, there’s something interesting going on everywhere you choose to look, even on the ground. sights and smells and textures if you ever touch, the way the sidewalk heat seeps into the soles of your shoes, toothless beggars and dusty flowers nodding in the slipstream of cars passing by like valiant soldiers bearing their banners with small determinism. i felt a sudden urge of very genuine affection for main market all of a sudden. good old main market, the same ever since i can remember. good old roundabout with its battered grass and swingy, some-broken chains (is there a fountain?). good old master sahib, who has stitched every tailor-made item of clothing i own. good old jalal sons and its chocolate swiss rolls. good old sabzi wallah from forever. things you can count on, things that you know so well…are just so important sometimes. i get bored very easily and i’m all for new adventures and sights and tastes, but you always need someplace to come home to- where the sheets will smell like sunshine and detergent and the pillow knows the shape of your head, where people recognize you because you look like your mother, where you can do the chicken dance in Nana’s room and be lovingly indulged because everyone knows that’s just you being kooky because you can, where there will always be orange peel in the garbage even though it isn’t in season and the buffaloes will pee on the brand-new roads. home is a good thing to have.Mina at 1:54 PM
