Learning from the maximum city
Weekly Epiphanies: small talk on weather, the city that teaches you to prioritise, finding the right words
Hello Dear Readers,
I hope February is treating you well. Don’t worry if it’s not, since it’s a short month anyway.
The weather has moved out of its lethargy in Singapore and is scampering at peak speed to what seems like a hot summer ahead. The sudden volte-face of the sun, from hiding behind the clouds to glaring unforgivingly at the poor souls below, has made us all wary of stepping out without an umbrella and sunscreen.
There are cloudy and rainy afternoons on some days to bring relief, though short-lived. Our meals have also turned lighter, and the teenager’s snacks have been replaced by cooling drinks and sometimes plain old water. The wilting faces around me make me wonder if February is so confident of its hotness; what will March, April, and May bring? They will strut their scorching incandescence in ways we cannot imagine.
Whether we like it or not, a warming planet is our destiny, and we cannot do much about it. This is our only home, no matter what billionaire space explorers might have us believe.
Home and other priorities
Whenever we think of home, ‘compromise’ is not the first word that comes to our mind. If it’s our home, why should we compromise? Why should we settle for anything less than we need in our safe haven?
Yet, many have seemingly built their homes on a foundation of adjustments. They adjust their future vision, tweak their habits and lifestyles, and refocus their outlook on life and living to achieve their objectives while clinging to their watered-down notion of a home. I am referring to the millions of metropolitan residents who live in congested neighbourhoods and compact apartments in overcrowded cities.
Serendipity (or some strange twist of the algorithm) brought a YouTube series called The Tenant into my feed. The show focuses on tenants who prefer renting homes to owning them in some of the major cities in India, though the majority of the episodes were based on Mumbaikars.
The city is a quagmire of compromises, and yet people find happiness within those adjustments because they make them prioritise. What I learned from the various stories of professionals, retirees, young couples, singles, and students who call the ever-expanding city their home while creating a matchbox-sized heaven for themselves is that your priorities matter.
Your priority list dictates how happy or content you feel at any point in time. If a young family prioritises their child’s school and the community in which the child grows, they might be willing to spend three to four hours a day commuting to their workplace. Conversely, they are ready to sacrifice other amenities if they want to walk to work.
This kind of weighing and balancing happens at every stage in life. So, the city forces them to reevaluate their options every few years, keeping them on their toes—modest, humble, and grounded. It simultaneously builds confidence that they can survive and thrive in any city in the world if they can do it in Mumbai.
You won’t be far from the truth if you think this is a paean to the city by an unabashed Mumbai soul. However, don’t go by my words alone. Check out some of the episodes to see what I mean.
Why did I leave the city, and continued to stay away from it despite spending twenty-five years of my life in one of its suburbs? My priorities (then and now) do not align with what the city has to offer.
Yet, my idea of home is inextricably linked to the city, my idea of the city. In my short stories, I have explored the various facets of Mumbai life. The Bombay that I was raised in and the Mumbai that I know is quite different from the Mumbai that it is now.
One thing that has not changed is the clarity and practicality with which it makes you look at your situation. Get your priorities straight, says the maximum city!
Reading Life
I am enjoying my slow read of Shashi Tharoor’s A Wonderland of Words. It takes me back to my carefree childhood days when I would be interested in the most obscure words and their origins. But those were the days without the internet, so I would spend more time using the thesaurus.
Lately, I find myself grappling with the affliction called lethologica. For those unfamiliar with the word— it is the inability to recollect a particular word exactly when you need it. It is frustrating when you know that the word is at the tip of the tongue, but you can’t get it out. Lethologica is a good reason for writers to review and rewrite their drafts to find the right word, and let the reader enjoy the story without excessive scratching of their head.
I am keen to pick up another book while I continue to sample chapters from A Wonderland of Words, but my TBR pile intimidates me. It would be good to start with something quick and light.
Dear readers, line up your priorities and keep reading.
Sudeepa
Indeed, life is but a sum of our priorities. That's how different lives pan out differently- based on the choices we make. Love your descriptions of city life.