Quantity of quality

The sheer quantity of quality- details and MOMENTS I want to share and remember are backing up in my mind, till I don’t know where to start or how to capture it. I feel I’m trying to collect water in a sieve. I make lists in my mind to try and remember the daily vibrancies, and then come more, and I am swamped. So I guess it’s fitting to similarly bombard you with details, in an illogical swarm perhaps reminisent of the city’s vibrant chaos and constant efforts to overwhelm- so far unsuccessfully, I am hooked.

~I spent a sleepy Sunday afternoon recovering from epic night (sweaty Bollywood style dancing and the kind of quirks that keep you out till dawn) out and crashing Preeya’s lunch with her Indian family. They were warmly amused by my adoration of the food. We go to the ‘salon’ on the third floor of their building, which is a fascinating cultural experience in itself. I do some ‘research’ with hair removal and try out waxing- kind of super satisfying. Armpits hurt the worst, and I felt so sorry for my tiny bleeding hair follicles, no way would I try waxing my poor pubis, fuck that shit! It’s all about invasive beauty procedures here- eyebrows are twisted off with string, entire bodies waxed- why wax your back, why? Faces bleached… I meet Abi, who gets excited about the VMs and invites me to her after knowing me ten minutes and 1.5 legs worth of hair removed.



~Banipurri is the epitome of fast food. It’s the kind of street food you eat just because you crave it. People mob the stand and wait their turn, holding tiny tin cups. The man is like a conductor, grabbing the tiny crispy spheres, punching a hole in them then, swoosh, swoosh, filling them with some sort of minty spicy fresh juice and garbanzo beans (I think) then plunking them in people’s cups. It’s like feeding all these greedy baby birds. You pop it whole into your mouth and it explodes in the strangest tangy rush. Then you hold out your cup for the next one. So you have this crowd of people all holding out their cups waiting for the next 2 seconds of bliss. Maybe it resonates particularly because you see so much of this begging posture constantly, and it’s a joy to see people so easily satisfied.




~I take the wrong train and end up in Andheri. I watch the deep indigo urban grit sliding by with refreshing wind mixing up my breath and hair. I’m listening to NW hip-hop, and the handles of the Ladies Only Car are swaying in-time with Track 5. I am exhausted and pleased.

~It can be so exhausting having the same conversations nearly constantly, How long have you been here? What are you doing? Wait, what?! Vagina-what?! So finding those people who you can skip to the soul of the thing with is a real gift. My new friend Anneke is like that. Chatting over masala chai with the ever-present eardrum-blasting honking in the background, she went on this beautiful tangent that caught my imagination. I think I was going off on the sense of needing to focus or specialize, and how I wish I had some true vocation or passion like Andrew, Emily, Anne, Ellie, Elliot, etc. etc. How I see Joyce be so deeply focused and “on” all the time, but how that’s not me, and she just sort of stopped me, and said it’s the nature of our age and our personalities, that we’re ‘not ready to let things go’ yet and that’s okay. This is basic, but I felt she gave me permission to remain open. I love the image it conjures of all these possible paths stretched ahead, and letting ourselves still love them for a bit more instead of placing roadblocks. When we’re young we have these gazillion paths we fancy taking, and bit by bit we narrow and focus, and though we gain so much it’s through a process of elimination. Each decision holds within it so much possibility, but also a loss. Yet with this year I’m sensing a possible synthesis that makes me thrill with possibility.



~ While in the back of a rick navigating the cramped streets I see this single cow. She is slowly ambling through a 6 street intersection. It’s as though she is in slow motion, completely unperturbed by the mad human scramble as rickshaws, motorbikes, buses and taxis swerve around her. I can’t describe this one adequately, it was just this strange contrast of humanity’s chaos… This other animal, the one other natural thing in this landscape of cement and metal and exhaust, had grown immune to the unnaturalness of us, and was herself the out-of place-element in this fabrication. This is how far we have come. She could have been the last cow in the world, she could have been a dinosaur going extinct.


~Two hyper masculine men decked out in military gear, shined shoes and guns are ambling along the shady side of the street. They are the same height and build, and the one is lightly clasping the extended pinky of the other. I walk behind them for blocks and blocks, and they keep strolling, just holding one another. The truth is the society’s so homophobic it’s assumed that they’re not gay, so it’s more permissible for men to be affectionate with one another- this is such a bittersweet idiosyncrasy. But I enjoy seeing men being so sweet with one another in-spite of this.




~I make my first clothes-washing attempt, and the incredible nastiness of my clothes completely stain this white I <3 BKK t-shirt a nasy rotten egg color. And in the process I use up the whole house’s water supply. Oh, idiot.


~Leaving an interview with the most gorgeous older lady I have ever met, the ever-charming Vagina pioneer Dolly Thakore, the cab was (of course) stuck in a sweat-inducing traffic jam. Then, a man on a bycicle breezed past. His two foot high daughter calmly had her shiny black shoes and knees socked feet on the back of his seat and her tiny paws on his shoulders. They were this little bubble of calm, as he cycled and she balanced, as though they were floating through the country-side and not a street that seemed to be full of all 14 million of Mumbais’ inhabitants.