Each morning I descend the stairs from my third floor flat. I pass the open windows of our neighbors. Scenes of morning: people cooking rice, watching television, waking up in their beds. Privacy is hard to come by when our homes are this close together.
I reach the ground and usually greet the professor. Without fail he has something cinematic to say. He delivers lines like, “Seeing your bright face this morning reminds me that optimism is the zest of life!” or “That man is a struggler. I have so much respect for the struggler!” I don’t know where he comes up with this stuff but it’s always good. He ends the monologue with an unnaturally extended laugh, not unlike a cackle.
About this time I walk into the sunlight. This leads me to my current problem. It is summer, and being outside is miserable. Temperatures hover around 100 degrees, but the humidity is what gets you. Most days it is near 75 percent. The sweating begins instantly. Coping with this has been a curious affair. There is a conditioning that occurs. One learns to sweat with dignity.
I unlock the gate and then greet the old man who delivers water for a living. He is filling his buckets from the pump out front. He always smiles. His two improvised buckets hang on the ends of a long, flexing pole. He jogs alongside me in rhythm with the bounce of the buckets on the pole.
Two apartment buildings and I am to the end of our neighborhood. My favorite mangy street dogs are in full lounge mode by this time of the morning. Presently shadows of their nighttime terror when they guard the neighborhood from us.
I turn onto the main road and pass the three families that live under eaves. All their worldly possessions hang in grocery bags from every hook and corner imaginable. The mothers prepare breakfast over open flames while the children play some game they invented this morning -- games they reinvent each morning. I pass three year olds sprawled on cardboard beds under mosquito nets and walk through family conversations at the breakfast table.
Now on the main road the sugar cane sellers are almost done with their prep work on a huge pile of sugar cane stalks. They peel the hard outer skin off with sharp, curved blades. Their jingly machine (with bells!) will squeeze the juice from the cane stalks into one of four drinking glasses in perpetual use throughout the day.
The same man with his black poof-dog sits on the same stoop a few shops down. He occasionally asks me for ten rupees or a cigarette, which to this day I’ve not given him. Shopkeepers on either side of him splash water onto the sidewalk and offer aromatic prayers for auspicious transactions in the day to come. The men at the Nepalese dumpling “momo” stand opposite chop onions and fold dough for the day’s lunch rush.
Twenty or so shops further and I pause on the curb at the intersection. Busses wedge full of sweaty commuters here, then make a sweeping turn to continue their multi-hour journey to wherever their multitudes work. Men and women jump on and off these moving busses, the same busses that weave so close to tiny ladies as we all weave our separate ways to the office. Touts hang in the doorways of those busses and yell out where they are headed.
Sometimes I am stranded in the middle of the road if I’ve misjudged the lights. This used to be a little unnerving but I no longer worry. I understood that there is no “almost” in traffic collisions. One either made contact or didn’t. No one sees their life flash before their eyes.
Safely (at least to this day) onto the curb, I hand three rupee coins over for my morning paper. Opposite the papers, the same two ladies look up at me from under their veiled sarees and try to figure out exactly what I am. I pass the pan seller sitting in an impossibly cross-legged position. He’s mixing scores of obscure spices from metal cans with tobacco, which he folds into leaves for chewing. He always finds his metal clanging rhythm as he opens and closes the ten or so different cans. I am not friends with this stuff. There is a saying here, “shobuj paan khaan aar laal pik phelun” which means, “eat green paan and spit out the red juice”. Part of the paan eating experience is spitting out the bright red juice, much like chewing tobacco, except there is a leaf involved. All over the city, inside buildings, in the gutter, in trains, and even airports you will see red spit stains on walls from this stuff. My roommate loves it.
Next to the Paan seller is our boy Raju from the tea stand. He juggles boiling chai and needy customers to offer an enthusiastic “Good Morning!” Almost every day finds us standing on that corner sipping clay cups filled with something Raju boiled up. It might be the most impractical place in the world for a teashop. We block the sidewalk if we stand on one side and on the other is a ridiculously noisy street where busses and motorcycles whiz right past us. It’s a little like sipping tea on the tarmac of the airport. The end of teatime is always celebrated by smashing our cups on the ground with some sort of fanfare. I’ve decided that I come back each day in spite of the atmosphere because Raju offers up a great, consistant experience every time for a reasonable price.
I turn the corner at Raju’s and wade through the devotees at the Sai Babba Temple. Sai Babba is some sort of holy god-man with temples all over the world. In his photos he has a Gandhi-esc presence. People stand all around and give prayers, flowers, and offerings in the doorway of the temple. Sometimes lines of crippled people wait outside for hot food, other days frail beggars swarm well-dressed benefactors for one of the ten one rupee coins they are offering. One beggar in particular, the one with the scraggly beard, sits right in the middle of the sidewalk. He never asks or even looks my way, just gazes off at the Sai Babba Land Cruzer parked up the street from the temple. Sai Babba rolls on dubs, it turns out.
Work is just a few more streets down. It is off the main road and in a fairly quiet neighborhood. The same people sit in the same positions and they’ll always return your wave or a smile if you try it first. A few of the trees flower with amazing colours if you’re there in the right season. It’s a nice transition into the workday. I usually arrive up the two flights of stairs in good spirits and sweating with more dignity than I can handle.
