creature comforts

I’m sort of a creature of people. Even though I usually don’t think much of most people, I like to be around them. That’s why I live in a city. It gives me comfort to be near other human beings, to be part of a collectiveness, some small individual piece that’s part of a greater whole; a cog in the wheel if you will. I don’t know why this makes me feel better, it just does.

Mumbai, while filled with more people than have ever been in my near vicinity, has in its complete lack of similarity to anything I know, a stylized artistic tilt to it that is reminiscent of Charles Bukowski’s self inflicted isolation. I think of him as I sit at my small table in my small unadorned apartment watching the ceiling fans twirl above me. All I need is a bottle of scotch and a pack of smokes, preferably a half smoked stick sitting in an ashtray, its smoke curling in a cloudy romantic tendril around me.

Is this separation self-inflicted? I am indeed separated. Communication is somewhat difficult, not so much in conversation, but understanding what is truly an acceptable thing to ask according to custom/culture. You kind of just have to go for it, but it does nothing to help with the feeling that you are completely and totally alone. Doing the easiest thing can be quite complicated. Last week, someone had to help me dial our Delhi office. This morning the security guard waved me away from an ATM machine. I realized after about a minute of incredulity at not being allowed to use it that he was saying, “out of service.” Asking where to buy a beer or where you can find a mcdonalds is surprisingly difficult with people that are supposed to speak English.

As I write documentation of my time here it would be dishonest to not write about the less thrilling parts of my adventure, the parts where I’m annoyed and even disgusted with Mumbai: it’s unhygienic and uncouth ways. The culture mixes attitudes and lifestyles with behaviors completely startling and other behaviors completely commendable. But the bad things are there, and I notice them too.
Some days it’s all I notice. Other days I get indignant at criticisms of Mumbai and I come to her defense. And days like today, I just want to know where the fuck I can buy a pack of smokes.