Another sick morning. Bad cold. Jammed throat, heavy head, a heavier heart and eyes that won't stop watering.
I sit on the single sofa with my head tilted back. I lit an incense stick in the living room to arouse my smelling senses. I made my special adarak ki chai for myself. I got up, left the bed, got ready and took an appointment with the doc I'd seen in the first week of last month.
I fall sick quite often. And it's okay. I've lived away from home a lot, so I can be by myself and take care of things too now. I didn't fall sick in Madras a lot. Only once in ten months. That's some kind of a record by itself. I try and tiptoe around monsoons and be super-cautious when the weather is bad here in Poona, nevertheless I fall sick. Again and again!
Cities, people, climates, I've seen a lot change. But what clutches my heart back to Madras is a mystery to me in ways more than one. I was wayward and a fool while in the city. Eating all the roadside food, drinking all the ramshackle booze, getting drenched in rain, stepping into the water even when I ran a temperature, taking long long long unending - at times hour long walks to the beaches, walking barefoot on the road outside the campus, and the romantics one can think of. But the city gave me only one frozen shoulder in ten months.
Parents were so surprised. Being accustomed to my regular hospital and clinic visits, they gave into my love for the city and didn't complain much when I didn't see them for six months straight. The sticky air, the damp smell, the always heavy wind, the boisterous waves, 1, Elliot's Beach, Mammallapuram, Gutter Market, Vellacherry, Phoenix Market City, Kailash's Kitchen, Triplicane, Old-fucking-Cask, it's an endless list ...
And a few months back someone asked me why I love Madras even when I know so little about it? I laughed and told the person to shut up. You don't need a reason to love. And loving a city is anyway far better than loving people!