APRIL 2007, TRAVELLER'S TALES
Cities linger. Like lovers, their shadows trail after you. Long afterthe goodbye.Scraps of their memory cling to you. The first glimpse of a city'swinding lanes, cobbled streets, arching freeways. Minarets, turrets,castles and crumbling forts. Sepia-tints. Bright lights. Chrome and steel towers dazzle the skies in our odes to modernity.
Cities have no patience with etiquette. Like lovers, their memoriessurprise you. Any time, any place.
There are snapshots of each city wired into your brain. A jumble of images: the taste and touch of a city, its smells, the coda of its sunsets, the glint of its night lights. Ages after you wave goodbye,they will flash across your mind. Catch you unawares on a greyevening, a bright summer morning. On days you can't summon the will to live. On days you explode with energy and believe you can take overthe world. They simply turn up. Without preamble. Without a plot.
A memory of a walk in a centuries-old market in Istanbul where youstumbled on unexpected treasures. An antique lamp from a forgottenfairytale, beckoning you from a store at its noisy center. A long,rambling conversation with the owner, his face so furrowed you could swear he is an alchemist who owns the elixir of immortality.
A meal at a street side café on a sun-dappled Brooklyn street. An artist sits next to you and sketches the scene, as you bite into aslice of luscious honeyed cinnamon toast, the café comes to life on his canvas, bright yellow chairs, crimson coffee mugs, people huddled over tables, their movements slow and languorous, basking in the beginning of a new day. His brush traces the street, it moves in deft strokes, conjuring up fluffy white clouds, a benign Spring sky,beneath it, a tiny yellow café blooms like a flower, a lazy street unwinds.
Cities you lived in and will never forget. Streets as familiar as the lines on the palm of your hand. Their museums, parks, churches and cemeteries, bridges and freeways and music halls. Steak houses, strip clubs, ghettos, inner cities. You could find your way across them, blindfolded, on the darkest of nights. Cities whose geography you have made your own; like a lover's body, such intimate knowledge, a vein here, a mole there, a scar from an old wound etched deep into the skin.
Cities you visited and long to get lost in again. Stuck in your head like a tune. A jazz note you are free to improvise. Cities that seduce you. Surrender to the black magic of their bright lights. Their manic hearts pulse all day, all night. Cities that never sleep. Or stop to weep. Live in the moment. Let it be.
Cities that play your muse. Like perfect lovers, inspiring you to create prose and poetry, art and music.
Cities you remember and fight to forget.
Cities so close but so far away.
A recent visit to Kagul, a small town where I was born. This is a town in transition, fast morphing into a city. New malls, multiplexes. Flashy cars zipping across once sluggish streets. But I discover that if you stand still and listen, shut out the static and listen, you can still hear the song of the sea, the old lament, the soothing lullaby that rocked me to sleep, the primal roar that woke me up with a shudder on stormy childhood nights.
I wander the lanes of the old city which is tucked away behind the veneer of the flashy new town. People greet me in polite tones reserved for tourists, a reminder that natives who leave by choice need not expect to be taken back into the tribe. The landmarks of my childhood wink conspiratorially at me. The stately silver church by the water tank glints in the sunshine, the hands of the old clock opposite the railway station go tick tock tick tock.
In this city, I was a child. This city was my world. I remember early morning walks by the sea, clinging to my grandfather's arm. The gulls circling overhead, fishermen pushing their boats across the glistening sand, humming a happy tune, praying for a good catch. I chatter louder than the gulls, safe in the knowledge that my grandfather is anexcellent listener.
Trips to the city's only posh bookstore with my aunt. The store is about a half hour ride from home. We plan each expedition gleefully, it is my welcome break from the drudgery of school and homework andendless evening tutorial sessions. The owner of the bookstore, unlike most adults, talks to children, not at them. We discuss authors and new releases like old friends. I pick up Phantom and Mandrake comics, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, a book of Shakespeare's plays. My aunt is a fledgling lawyer trying to find a foothold in the legal jungle. Her senior lawyer pays her a nominal monthly salary. But I fill my shopping bag with books, oblivion towards your budget being one of the exclusive privileges of childhood!
After years, I am back in this city for a wedding. A young cousin isdecked up as a bride, as her make-up thickens, her face transforms erily into that of a stranger's. As the auspicious hour of the edding ceremony draws near, the bride's family is bundled into cars nd driven to the venue. As we drive past endless rows of shopping alls and jewelry stores, the eternal question pops up in my head.
Can you go home again? Yes, you can.
But make sure you have confirmed return tickets before you set out. More survival tips. If you want to hang on to semblance of sanity, get out of town before the family ghosts come to haunt you. Before the matchmakers make a beeline for you. Keep it short and sweet. A brief trip down memory lane is all your system can take.
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The past is a city you lived in once. Its lanes so familiar like the lines on the palm of your hand. In its maze you lose yourself. A city so close, yet so far away.
The future is a city that haunts your dreams. A tune stuck in your head. A jazz note you are free to improvise. The black magic of its bright lights hard to resist. Its manic heart, pulsing, all day, all night.
Here and now, in this fleeting, fragile present, so many cities left to see. With new stories to tell, they wait. Patiently.
IRIS
