Cities

Paris was not as intense as I had imagined it to be. I have never understood how to explain it but inspite of being the embodiment of a beautiful poem by a poet who has had the perfect amount of suffering, happiness, love, longing, torture in his life, Paris, for me, needed to be more. I wanted more. I had hoped for more. It had the capacity to make me feel pretty naked in my defense towards life but like I said, somehow, the whole experience was just a bit hollow. Each and every building asked for its soul. I was comforted by a new friendship with a fellow backpacker during the first half of my time there and Leonard Cohen in a lovely bookshop and thoughts of a very lovely boy in the second half. There is a reason why I am rambling today about this. Just read this piece on Flavorwire about what these lovely people have to say about monumental Paris and I kind of feel jealous that those emotions evaded me.

Mumbai is resplendent right now. Glistening leaves. Colorful umbrellas. Hard-working chaiwallas with their little stalls and sharp beautiful steam coming out of their aluminium almost-rusted kettles. The sound of the rain. The sights. The clattering sound on the tin rooftops at various places. The raindrops hugging the taxi or the car windows. Old silly Hindi songs on my radio while on my way to work. Schoolchildren jumping into filthy puddles. If this is not the moment to be fully alive then I don't know what is.

The Curious Case of the Unwanted Lizard

I am not particularly scared of lizards. Dogs. Well, that is another story. When it comes to dogs, I think Chandler's theory of my-neck-is-exposed-and-he-can-sense-my-fear is the closest theory I have come across to explain my rational fear of being around dogs. Anyhow, lizards! So most of the houses I have stayed at in my life so far- four in Delhi and four in Mumbai have had lizards. Small. Big. Medium. Light brown. Dark brown. While my mother has been the most daring in our family to "shoo" away those crawlies, I have distinct memories of my dad screaming for my mother's help at any sighting of a lizard.

I don't get scared because they are usually crawling at a remote corner of some wall in the house and generally, I don't have much stuff to do on the walls except for stare at them for some philosophical pondering. So often me and many lizards have had eye contacts and a smile or two has been exchanged too but beyond that there has been an understanding of a peaceful co-existence. And come to think of it, they are not even ugly and full of germs like cockroaches or catty and annoying like rats etc so they have almost always been welcome in my various houses, much to the dismay of many of my guests.

However, things have changed now. Now I live in a Really tiny studio apartment, on my own. Each and every corner and inch of the space in this house is accounted for. Only the things, people and creatures who I want to be around are invited to this place. After about a month of moving to this abode, something happened, which finally changed what I have often felt or not felt about lizards.

She is bigger than any other lizard I have encountered so far. And to be fair to her, she might appear larger than life because of the super tiny size of my apartment. Some rules of proportionality need to be applied here. From nowhere, she pops out like a lightening bolt , scares the fucking daylights out of me and eventually put me on the risk of my impending heart attack. As you would probably know, sudden fear and shock is the reason of about 65% of the heart attacks in this world.

Since she moves almost at the speed of light (If I can just exaggerate a bit), it is impossible to get any photographic evidence for the professional exterminator if I choose to call one. At one point, I even considered shooting a documentary on her life but because of her rapid movements it is very difficult to zoom in, zoom out and also follow her around. She avoids all eye contact now and obviously we have moved beyond the stage where we can even think about smiling at each other. So finally I have changed my views about having a lizard in the house. You are not welcome in my house anymore lizzy-missy. I am all set to take some drastic steps about this one in particular and in the process if other lizards get upset with me too, inspite of my good behaviour with them over the years, then I am ready to bear the consequences.

PS: Wanted a professional lizard thrower, hunter or exterminator!