Sunday, June 23, 2013
Figuring it out, mayte
I believe you only get
a new city when you’ve used, and by used I mean really used its public
transport. When I look back at the many cities I’ve been fortunate to live in
for varying amounts of time, I can associate, with consummate ease, a feeling of
belonging with an epiphany in some mode of public transport. There’s nothing
profound in this- essentially you’ve figured out how to get along on your own
and rub shoulders with the ‘true’ denizens. In Delhi, the ‘I own this city’ started
with the feeling of stepping out (alive) of a DTC / Blueline, got reinforced
during the rickshaw-bus-bus-Vikram-walk
routine of my undergrad internship days and is a pleasant reminder every time I use
my metro card in the justified pride of the city. Calcutta had its ‘kauto’
moments in the shared autos to Sakher Bazaar and
Dum Dum, in the genteel voice announcing
‘Poroboti station- Robindro Shodon’ and the not-so-genteel haggling with the
crooks who pass off as taxi-drivers on why they were not entitled to anything
over and above the meter fare when taking you to a metro station in the middle
of the day. And while anywhere north of 15 million people would sing peans in
praise of those uncomfortable, unfriendly and unsafe Bombay locals, I will take
the 2 a.m. occasionally inebriated return drives to Sewri / Bandra in the scrupulously honest black-and-yellow taxis any day and think ‘this is hic my town’.
Similarly, in Singapo-Lah, it was the 2
months of recharging my MRT card and seeing stations in the Circle Line get
operational that made the tip of the Malay Peninsula such a familiar corner. And
despite my year long Southern Sojourn, I believe I could never really get Chennai because my contributions to the ‘Hello-I-drive-an-auto-I-will-fleece-you’
society were few and far between. This, despite the efforts of the Landmark
quiz and one awesome place called Devi Theatre which played host to the Sons of
the Soil come alive in the Wasseypur saga and Lefty shouting ‘I love you
Katrina’ (or something along similar lines) in a memorable team event.
So it was after almost a month at Brisbane
that I started to get that feeling of belongingness. The momentous occasion was
a weekend trip to the Gold Coast. The TransLink card was activated, the rail
map familiarised and a journey significantly more than the 80-odd kms embarked
upon. There have been other significant signposts along the way- the one
sensible waitress at the Starbucks opposite the office asks ‘Caramel Machiato?’
when I walk in (she even gets Abhijit’s exacting-by-Australian-standards order
right- skimmed milk, no sugar, no foam). I like to think the people at the
French bakery which has been serving as my Sunday lunch haunt for consecutive
weeks now, reserve their ‘See yous’ (perhaps a literal translation of Au
Revior) for me because I always attempt a smattering of ‘Bon Jour’s
and ‘Comment ca va’s when there. To top it
all, the bouncer at the Drinking Consultants did not ask me for id on my last
visit, even though a gregarious soul inside was later to remark- ‘but you look
12’. In fact, in the last couple of weeks, I’ve even found myself answering
Queen Street or Brisbane in response to ‘Where do you stay?’
There is, of course, some way to go. The
dealers at the Casino don’t go ‘Ah, my friend from India’ yet, the way their
counterparts at Singapore used to. And during the aforementioned Gold Coast
visit, when one of the drunks suddenly decided to slip down and sprawl himself
on the ground as I walked past, it was ‘are you ok, man?’ that I enquired, the ‘mayte’
conspicuously absent.
It has been quite a ride so far though.
Highlights have included a Masterchef-esque 12-course meal, which I hope to
tell you about later, true realization of Javed Akhtar’s other-worldly
description of the under-sea world (Pighle neelam sa behta ye
sama… apne hone par mujhko yakeen aa gaya) and a glimpse of what the
land of Middle-Earth might be like. Side by side have been the realisaiton that
politicians and news channels are cut from very similar cloth everywhere and dogged
attempts to figure out the clubs, players and histories of Aussie Rules and the
Rugby League.
Overall, it’s been a journey of learning and inspiration
and discovery, and as a timeless traveler with a thirst for thought, what more
does one want?
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