This is a day of firsts. Today Discovering Mumbai presents it's first guest post. Also this is the first time that we are stepping outside the borders of Mumbai to bring to you a story from another equally enchanting metropolis - Delhi. Today's guest post writer is Amanda Rivera.
Amanda Rivera is a young professional working and making her way through the beautiful chaos of Delhi. After spending time throughout the USA, Europe, and a brief stint in Southeast Asia, she is excited to make India her home.
'Bitter Reality' is a gripping post about her not so great experiences in Delhi. Her blog is special as it gives you an insight on how a single American woman is adjusting to life in Delhi. You can read your blog here.
Heading back from dinner in an
auto by myself, I smiled out at the scene around me. I had just finished
getting copies at Nehru Place and reading an entire book while eating. It felt
productive. I felt secure and confident and safe.
My auto driver pulled over and
said he didn’t know where we were going. I told him again that he had said he
knew the first time so let’s get going please. Something felt off. I almost
jumped out and got another auto but it was getting later in the evening and no
one was around at the current spot. We finally got moving again and when we
arrived at my destination I asked the driver how much. He responded with, in
Hindi, “your heart.” I made some noise at him and tried to get out to pay.
Suddenly he had grabbed my arm
and was pushing me backwards, kissing my arm and hand. I hit him, threw some
rupees at his face, and ran into the gate.
Okay. I’m okay. Just some crazy
drunk driver. Random.
But I was disoriented and
suddenly something was starting to peel back, the stench was finally reaching
my brain’s neurons. What had been all around me in each unsafe moment began to
register its existence. I’m a young woman. I’ll never be able to truly be alone
in this city, I’ll never have the freedom to be as independent as I like. The
consequences of doing as I please are too dangerous, too real now.
Recently, my friends and I were
going to see an office building a mutual buddy had just finished building
because he wanted to show it off. The location was farther out, west of Delhi.
The familiar streets crumbled away until the piles of people slumped together
on the ground outnumbered the vehicles on the dirt road. I realized also where
they had pushed all the cows to– they stared at us in herds, unafraid to
monitor and enforce their rules.
More and more space breathed out
between the buildings. They were falling over on one side and most were
abandoned to dust. Grass grew in tall weeds around slabs of cement sticking out
of the ground in a hodge podge assortment. Suddenly our friend said, “We’re
here!”
He proudly demonstrated what was
the newest building in the area, the TVs inside, the nice marble floor. I
wanted to laugh at the contrast. He’s a land developer and was going on and on–
arms waving around wildly– about how expensive the land surrounding us was,
what he was going to do with it, how he’d be even more rich with time. My mind
suddenly pictured the mound of human bodies nearby. Where had they been before?
What farmers among them had been forced by good money to sell their land? Had
ended up with nothing to occupy their time and no way to sustain themselves
after the money ran out?
I walked outside. The moon glowed
down onto the field behind the office building. I walked through moist clay mud
and stood against the gate, my face pressed against cool metal. A light peeked
out of a small, slanted brick edifice out in the middle of the grass.
Everything inside me wanted to jump the bars holding me back and run out into
the field, dance free, and finally end up sitting at table with the person
sitting in the brick room. I wanted to ask them what they thought about the new
office building meters away from their window. Wanted to hear that they were
ok, that they were happy here, that they knew India was going to be alright.
I imagined an old woman putting
her hand on mine, smiling. We would look at each other and both know that the
world around us was crumbling like so many of the homes had in this part of
Delhi. But that there would always be an open field with moonlight, always a
light shining somewhere through an open window, always an open heart willing to
see and to change.
Loud yelling brought me back to
the reality that I was still locked in. Turning, I made my way gingerly back
through the quicksand and into the office. The developer had found his servant
passed out on a bed in the back, apparently having had an entire bottle of
whiskey. The guy was mad that he had trusted the servant with this new space,
the technology, paid the AC bills, and all he was doing was passing out drunk.
I took this moment to use the
washroom, but when I came back I saw he’d thrown the servant outside, and the
man was curled into a ball on the concrete.
“No,” I told him firmly, “I’m
really sorry he did this and broke your trust, but he’s not well, you can’t
leave him there.” After the guy refused to bring him in, I went to the servant
myself and started lifting him. Another of my friends helped, mostly embarrassed
to let a girl lift a man in such a way. We put him back on the bed when he
started throwing up. The orangey brown liquid wouldn’t stop, like squirts of a
hose that’s been folded to build up the pressure.
The developer really started
screaming, trying to grab him back off of the bed and throw him out again. I
looked at him hard. “This man is sick. You can’t put him out where we can’t
watch him because he’s throwing up. If he does this while laying the wrong way,
he could choke himself to death. And how would that make you look?” I attempted
to appeal to his ego.
He said some things in low,
growling Hindi that I didn’t understand. I went into the kitchenette area and
got towels and water. When it seemed that the vomit had finally stopped, I
gathered up the blankets and threw those outside instead, cleaned off the
servant, eventually made him drink some water, then turned to face the other
guy’s wrath.
He put his hands on my face as
though to slap me. I grabbed my other friends and demanded we leave.
The developer put us all back in
his car and we rode silently to Delhi. I watched as the scene reversed, the
tree lined streets returned, the happily beeping autos replaced the cows, and
the city lights drowned out the fury in my heart.
The stench was growing stronger.
No comments:
Post a Comment