Welcome to Dreamland!

Why is sweet not smelling sweet? Why is it cloying the senses? Why does it make me want to cover my nose, in fact every pore of my body, so that the bad smelling sweetness does not enter me? But this is how it is every day. Every single day. As I walk down the street from work, cross the intersection, walk down another street and then get on to the main road. That sweetness follows me everywhere. And it stays with me when I am back home. It lingers on when I am trying to catch the truant sleep. It flows into my dreams, permeating into every second of it. Where does it come from then, you would ask me. It comes from the women’s bodies. I asked one day, why do they make themselves smell so sweet? Is it to hide the other odours? Is it to hide the smell that emanates from their exploited bodies and minds and souls, a smell which haunts them all day, all night even? There they stand on the street. In a line. Dressed up like mannequins. Human mannequins. Bright red gashes for mouths, mascaraed eye lashes, pinked up faces, sequined gowns (for God’s sake). Women just like me. But not ordinary like me. No way.

And what happens to the air after dusk settles in. After the sun decides that he’s had enough and he spews liquid fire, burning the horizon. (Have you ever seen the sunset when the sky’s on fire…??? This is a song by Kenny Rogers called Evening Star). Where was I? Yes…when dusk settles in, something in the air suddenly changes. You can feel it. You walk down that street in the morning then do the same in the evening. And the metamorphosis will startle you. The most insensitive of senses would sense it. There is a crowd all around you, its rush hour, but strangely no one’s ever in a hurry over here.  The crowd moves slowly, it’s a rhythm that’s almost hypnotic. Moving slowly, biding their time. Time. Can you believe it? They are not rushing and pushing each other. Time is actually on their side out here. Is this Bombay or is it a parallel space chunked out from the body of the city and placed aside? A place which we would shy from. A place that has a place of its own, cut off from everything and everyone, yet very much a part of everything and everyone. Very much a part of what everyone finds dirty, taboo, disgusting, cheap, horrendous, frightening, diseased…

“Welcome to Dreamland,” says the cabbie to a firang looking person.