-Hi Atus, we seem to be running into each other often enough. How are you?
(long pause)
-Yeah, that’s right. You’re all about the pauses. Never mind then. Let’s get on with this.
We’re four months in now, even though it feels like much longer since I was cast away. Self imposition.
I’m sitting in the lobby of a fancy hotel working on a primitive laptop. Got my glasses on. Getting my groove on. Now where are the single malts and single ladies?
Who am I kidding. I need to regroup.
Boys, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Do you think you can manage?
Of course I can. There’s lots to do but they’re only just pedantic tasks. No real brainwork. What a pain.
People think this is a really big deal. I can’t seem to compute. It’s supposed to be a fun-filled EVENT. The word ‘Games’ is in it!
“Come out and play”, all sorts of sport, 70 countries, a big bonanza.
But no, involve the Man and bunches of Ministries and get everyone to hold their breath. Taking things seriously is everyone’s favourite game.
“This is the largest sporting event, second only to the Olympics”, and we’re bringing together countries originally brought together by colonialism. Right.
The eye of the storm is blind to me.
Here I am, taking each day as it comes, looking forward to the night and ensuring that there’s always good things in store the next day. It’s a survival tactic.
I’m in a big, unfamiliar city that is unfamiliarly becoming familiar to me.
Where am I? is a superb question to wake up to. Especially whilst driving by myself.
My constants of music, thought and energy assist in confusing me. Can’t help it.
This shit is bananas.
“You know it’s time that we grow old and do some shit”
- Broken Social Scene
(Listen to the version in the Bee Hives album. It's great. Plays in an awesome movie called Half Nelson)
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There is a space at work that is affectionately referred to as “The Stairs” where my associates and I indulge in some flippant conversation about whose boss said what to which underling and so on. We also turn our attention to nicotine and caffeine. Fun.
I was at The Stairs the other day with my wonderfully wonderful new-to-the-workplace Director. He’s a 60 year old man who has spent most of his life smiling politely in the hotel industry and is fluent in at least seven languages. Props. I don’t really think much of him in a professional light. I mean, I’m just looking to do my job and go home afterwards and I’d prefer it if there were a smaller number of people (that matter) having an opinion about my work. In any case, nice chap. Warm voice and his french is impeccable. He is also additionally charming because of his slightly awry sense of humour. It’s eccentric.
So we’re at The Stairs and he offers me a cigarette. I decline and so does my accomplice. We’re just giving him company, really. “You’re a good girl”, he concludes, directing his stare at my friend. And after a long enough pause, he adds-
“And I’m a bad boy.”
Warms my heart, it does. He talks about being consistently smokey since he was 12. Proud of it, he sparks off my desire to estimate how many cancersticks that actually amounts to. Over 350,000 which also translates to 700,000 rupees (considering the average price per cigarette, which, is obviously his information.) and before I finished playing with these numbers, he starts what seems like a completely disconnected story. Part of the ‘eccentricity I admire’, I dismiss – but Nay! “There was this American…” (here, you may note that he pauses to look into your soul, just to check if you’re paying attention, almost 5 times per sentence. His moustache covering his pout only makes the man cuter.) “standing near a car, smoking a cigarette. A sardar, like you (that’s me), asks him how long he’s been smoking and quickly works out the figures and says – ‘if you would have kicked this nasty habit of yours, you could have actually owned this car and the building you stand in front of!’ The American deftly responds, ‘This IS my car and that IS my building.’ The End.” He grins. I have absolutely no idea why. It’s marvellous.
Anecdote No. 2:
I was driving to the office this evening. To meet a colleague after her work hours so that we could have a drink and maybe do some shopping. On my way, the music reminds me of friends and times back home and so the calling begins. Whipping the phone out, I dial a good buddy and I laugh away as I drive into a major road. Hark! Police! The fellow gestures for me to stop. My first reaction is to wave my hand apologetically and decide whether I’m going to be driving away or stopping up ahead. I see him mount a motorcycle so I figure I’ll leave the exciting, high speed chase for another day.
I put on my sorry face and plead and show him all sorts of identification cards until he’s sore. He decides to let me off with a warning, which in his terms implies a smaller fine for a smaller crime. A crime I did not commit but it’s a mutual compromise that we’re happy to live with. He tells me the fine is a 100 and I’m alright with it. I open my smallet (small+wallet = new concept, great one at that) to discover that the beverage buying this afternoon left me with all of forty rupees. Damn, this could get complicated, I muse as he goes over to note down my registration. I’m going to have to go to an ATM and I don’t know how that’s going to fly with our crusader-man.
But wait! Over the past few months I’m sure I’ve made quite a collection with the spare change I accumulate now and again… and I dive into my dashboard tray to find all the thick coins I can. Two minutes and sixty rupees in circular stainless steel/ cupronickel later, I hand over my pittance and I’m free; free to do all the important things I told him I had set out to do which formed the basis of the illegal phone conversation I was having in the first place. (fib)
One important man to another, that’s how we do it, innit? :D
So yeah. Life in the capital is pretty sweet. I’m just not always in the mood, you know?
And this inability to teleport is something I think I’m never going to get over. I feel as though I’m regressing on so many levels as I move forward on the other ones.
Is that possible? What about that “once you learn to ride a bike” expression? I’m concerned that my writing is becoming more primitive and less coherent. Backwords.
Where’s the glue? I need to regroup.
One thing’s for sure – people here may be more legit, but they haven't broken any mould.
B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
