Humanly, my eyes, Alienic, my views

Thinking of waxing my hands, just like jennie

It’s the day when teenagers were dying in my mind. Anyways, they were supposed to die at a certain point in their time.

I woke up at 10:30 AM to get ready for my walk from Cuffe Parade to Malad/Andheri, which was at least the goal in my mind. I stood in front of my room’s huge window, looking at a family on the other side. They were putting out colorful LED lights on their balcony for Diwali. I received a call from my father, and I hung it up straight away. And, I went to take a shower and get ready. I started the geyser, got butt naked, and ate my toothpaste. I usually squeeze the toothpaste from its ass and get a mouthful of lump squeezed in my mouth. Then I top it off with some hot water from the shower and keep on gargling for a while. I felt like I was excited and happy about the walk, but instead, it was just pseudo-nascent water coming from the shower.

Recently, it has been hard for me to find “my place” and belonging. There’s a little girl in me who cries every time she is left alone on the street. I don’t have a place where I could sit or lie down on the floor with a cup of hot water and write in my book. I feel the lack of that frame in my life every day. I go out for such walks in the hope to learn navigation. Believe me, I really try to envision Mumbai as if it were a wasteland with just sand dunes and barren lands all around me.

I took the metro from Ghatkopar to Marol Naka at 11:00 AM and further changed to the beautiful and futuristic Aqua Line. Aqua Line of Mumbai sure is futuristic, but you don’t have much to do there, as it is completely underground. You cannot see the streets, circles, birds, and pavements from the air beneath. I usually carry 2-3 books with me, which are demanding my interest and attention.

While I was taking a ticket, I saw a bunch of teenagers who seemed to have just joined college, and a few of them gave me a stare. I felt as if I was wearing something strange, whereas I just wore a half sleeve shirt, gray cargo shorts and sandals with my maroon bag over my shoulders. They looked very attractive, I swear. They wore really nice clothes and covered their faces with black masks. Super attractive. They were in groups of 3-4 and were having a lot of fun. While walking, one of the girls continuously kept looking at me the whole time. She was decently beautiful and looked of a similar age. Wore a blue Chelsea jersey, baggy jeans, and some shoes which I don’t remember now. The most attractive thing about her was that she had Henna only on her left, with a beaded paracord bracelet over her wrist and nails sharp like a khukhri. The third time, she turned back and gave me one more stare top to bottom. So, on the platform, I went very far ahead of their groups. Sat on a chair beside and took out “Bite” by K.S. Merbeth from my bag. I am loving this book, and it fuels me up every time I read it. In the book, Pretty Boy is being mischievous as always; he even kissed and tried to assault The Kid. I was happy that Dolly came over and saved The Kid from getting assaulted. Dolly is the girl in the book who becomes pregnant because of a similar instance and then abandons her child. After that instance, she joins the raiders and goes completely quiet, turning into a strong and badass woman. I can’t stop smiling while reading this book.

In the next 40 minutes, I reached Cuffe Parade Metro Station and got out of it. It really felt suffocating for so long under the ground and within the soil. I wondered, “Are we even supposed to see the underground soil so closely ?”. I glided out of the station, saw the bright shining sun and the beautifully aesthetic apartment buildings around me. My stomach started growling. If I remember correctly, as always, even the day before, I had Chicken Fried Rice with some spring rolls on the sides. It was probably dissolved in my blood by now. I walked to the nearby shop and got myself a 20 INR Pepsi bottle. I walked towards the cross, looking at a man wearing a blue check shirt and a baggy jeans. He had a 250 mL milk packet in his hand. It looked as if he was talking to someone beside him, but there was no one. I walked past him, calling him “artist”. On the cross, I felt like I wanted to beat the shit out of someone, and I was listening to a really deranged song called “New Noise” by the Refused. The cars waited while I was zebra crossing, and I waited after crossing the first part. On the divider, I waited until the signal was green, I looked at the plants and I felt they were sad. So, I poured Pepsi over them, thinking and said, “Yep buddy, y’all need some sugar and caffeine too, I swear, it helps”. After crossing, I ate a very tasty samosa and moved on.

I walked towards the port, then to Churni Road, and then to the Marine Lines, talking over video call with my mother. I kept on looking at the house and wondered about the same thing once again, “Where do I belong ? Why in the world do I feel like a fucking alien here ? Where do I even rest my body? I haven’t woken up fresh even a single day for the last 10 months”. I felt happy looking at people in their balconies, cleaning the dust, and drying their clothes. It showed me a sense of belonging in them. Once a man came to me and he bantered at me, saying, “You are young, you should welcome changes”. I hate him for saying that, but I hate him because he was saying the truth. Maybe I should really change my place once again and find the sense of belonging I am asking to the fishes. Cry, you little girl.

I swear, the southern region of Mumbai is very aesthetically beautiful and pleasing. The way the old buildings are structured is just awe-inspiring. It wasn’t very crowded other than just a few hawkers and people walking out for lunch. I really loved the vibe of the city.

I walked for 2-3 continuous hours through Churni Road, then to Girgaon Chowpatty. The scenery there just caught my eye very vividly. That day was the death of a teenager in me, but I was seeing a lot of teenagers on Girgaon Beach. All of them looked really fabulous. I stopped at a bus stop to charge my phone. The sun was scorching hot, and my phone was already heating up a lot, but regardless, I decided to charge it. I stood there reading once again. In the book, Wolf, Pretty Boy, Tank, Dolly, and the Kid are now trying to escape from the queen’s kingdom. Wolf is hung upside down by the queen, and he says, “Instant karma” to her. It’s the saint’s men who raided the queen’s kingdom. I got distracted by a Taxi that came in front of me. 3 girls jumped out of the taxi. One of the school girls came beside me and was waiting for someone. Probably, her guardian. She took out her phone and started reading from it. I tried to have a peek at what she was reading, but I failed miserably. I asked, “Y’all allowed to take phones to school?”. She replied, “Yes, we are.”.
I proceeded further, and there were a lot of teenagers and school couples sitting on the pavements at the beach. Abusing and yelling at each other in Marathi. Some talked lovely stuff to their girls and giggled with them. Either with their hands over their shoulders or on their hips. For some reason, I feel very amused by these kinds of teenagers, they’re living such a free life when they are out. I love this fact about Mumbai and its open culture. It’s the NYC Lite. “Lite” because we still can’t stand on the sides of the street and kiss our partners. If it were a small town or some non-metropolitan city, lovers would be covering their faces with masks and sitting somewhere hiding, talking flattery stuff about their love for each other. The girls had their hair colored brown, some were even brave enough to draw out a thin line of tangled together cyan-ish pink colored hair over in the front. I wish I could be that beautiful-looking girl. I reminded myself, “I chose this sacrifice, I did not have to, but I still did. And yes, motherfucker, I will glorify every hard diamond you sold to me”.

Let me tell you about this one thing I’ve had in my mind. It’s pseudo-nascency. It’s not an actual word. I came up with that word one day in my mind. Pseudo is fake and, Nascency means “in-development” or “developing”. I believe everything is pseudo-nascent. There’s no real development happening; something just keeps on happening, you’re either moving ahead or going back. Everything is ephemeral, other than your death. We celebrate the writings of Sylvia Plath and many other writers who specifically write poignant or things that into the darkness on the sinusoidal graph of mood. But, when I write about my pseudo-nascency straight and raw, they either don’t talk to me, call me an abbot or say, “this one was very self-indulgent”. It’s either eureka or no-eureka. I’ve come to a realization about one thing, but I will not talk about it now.

I was trying to think about every single thing, imagine every little progression from what my eyes see. I’m not trying to sound different here, but I imagine 2-3 frames ahead of what everyone else might be doing. Let’s say I twist my leg (I usually do a lot) outward on a footpath. That is not where the end is, after that I’m imagining myself falling from the footpath on the road, and then a car is going full speed. Then I see Mr. Murphy and Milo standing in front of me, and I wave a “Hi” at them. It’s Milo Murphy fighting very much for control of my mind. In the past 2-3 years of living alone, he has become a dubiously good friend of mine.

After Girgaon, I was proceeding towards the Mighty Worli and Haji Ali. I really wanted to go to Haji Ali. No specific goal, I’m not even a muslim. I had a frame in my mind, and I wanted to actualize that frame in reality. It was me sitting on one of the rocks while man-spreading to the sea in front of me. While my UNIQLO bag is hanging behind me. This patch of the whole walk was kind of tiring because of the terrain. But the terrain excited me very much, to be very honest. I could sense some different in here, the difference was invisible and invincible. The people looked different; they were rich, but that does not justify what I want to convey to all of you. I really want my mom to walk like that woman with a beautiful black and white kurti, tapered jeans, and wear some really nice sandals if she were interested in leaving her mercenary self behind. The roads were super maintained with hygienic bus stops all over the place. It was evident that there are multiple clusters of Mumbai inside this small, tiny Mumbai. Moms and kids were either getting in or out of their SUVs or Mercedes, probably they were home after a tiring day at school.

The wave of disappointment hit my mind thereafter. I was at the edge of the cliff, hanging on a noose. It was very strong, and it put me in serious trouble, and I mean it when I say it. There was construction happening at Haji Ali, and I could not really actualize the frame I had in my mind. The flow of beautiful lyrics was there the whole time in my mind.

I took a detour and got inside the city again till I reached Worli. I was walking for 4 hours straight, and now I really need a break. I saw a woman with marinated tamarinds and raw mangoes. I got some tamarind from her and sat on the footpath beside her. Whenever I eat tamarind, there’s one specific memory that flashes in my mind. It’s of my dad, who called me “womanly” when I was once eating tamarind in front of him. It wasn’t very serious; he was just trying to be Moby Dick. I was listening to songs and lip-syncing the lyrics, saying, “And, if we can’t find where we belong, we’ll have to make it up on our own”.

After 1 more hour of walking from Lower Parel, I finally reached somewhere close to Worli. I had seen the sky-high buildings side of Worli previously, but now I saw a pathway through one of the slums on the Map and I decided to smell it. I walked through the slums for the next half hour, recording visceral imagery. There were a few kids skating with Juice containers in their hands. I took out my phone and turned on the camera to take a shot of one of the girls. I started recording, and just after 4 seconds of the recording, she fell down, and the bottle of juice broke. I felt startled as fuck, I put my phone inside and walked away as if I did nothing. I did not even jinx, I swear. She probably needed to learn skating from scratch once again.

Something was paining, somewhere on my body by now. I was a bit weak, but I had the strength to walk 10 more Kilometres. I crossed the Worli slums in 40 minutes, and I decided to take a metro from Worli to Dadar as this patch was just high-rise buildings and nothing really visceral. I need visceral visions to breathe.

I walked to Dadar Chowpatty, all tired, leaving a sweat smell and wrying. I say a few words every now and then to myself whenever they come to my mind. This time, I said, “I can’t hold one single leaf for 10 days, why do I hold any hope? It’s so fake”.

Families, couples, and friends were enjoying the Sea view deck. I took a seat beside a girl. I hadn’t looked at her while sitting at all. I was very fucking tired myself. My butt needed a surface to sleep on. After a while, I noticed she had her face hidden by her palms the whole time, and it felt like she was crying. And, yes, indeed, she was crying. After a while, she noticed my presence and, in anger, she got up and went to the edge of the deck. I did not want to invade her, but my filthy presence shook her mood apart for a while. She was looking on the other side to hide the tears flowing down her cheek. That moment suddenly reminded me of a poem I wrote previously this year called “Don’t do that”. I never published it, and I don’t even plan to. If I’m not wrong, only one girl has read it.

The evening wasn’t pleasant to my views, maybe it was just the pain. People around me were always having fun, giggling, and chit-chatting with each other while I was sitting just looking at them. One married couple caught my attention; they looked very, very happy. The man wore an Ochre colored full-sleeve shirt, black jeans, and Skechers shoes. The woman wore a white top, blue jeans, and some suede loafers for sure. They had their kid with them, but the whole time, the kid was leaning on my thighs and was watching YouTube beside me. I was pissed, but I was very happy looking at how Destiny was wearing the right pair of shoes for them.

I decided to stop after that, because the pain and weakness killed me with every step I took. And, more importantly, I had lost my mind and sold my body – to the pain. In my childhood, I used to often get lost in supermarket and cry. But now I am not even able to get lost in a big metro-city, while still not being able to navigate.

Metaphorically yours,
planet mangesh