melting pot

the city is unfamiliar, yet it feels like home. i wonder if it's because many of the people here are also strangers or foreigners like me.

as the train makes it way through the dark tunnels connecting one station to the other, i observe some of these strangers as they sit with only the sound of their own thoughts, the screeching and clattering of metal tracks below us, and the intermittent announcement of which station we will shortly be arriving at.

it's hard to tell at a glance who is from here, who is new here, and who is simply passing through. sometimes it's more obvious. i mean, the young couple speaking spanish and taking snapshots are obviously visitors; the east indian family, their suitcases and shoulder bags still tagged with the three letter code DEL, might also be visitors, but they look more as if they just moved here or perhaps are already settled, and just returning from a trip home. there's another girl with a camera, standing in the aisle, taking random shots that a typical tourist might not see, let alone be interested in. the girl sitting oposite has an eastern european look about her, but it's impossible to say whether it was her or a previous generation of her family who moved here.

this place is a melting pot.

in the cards

i'm drinking straight gin, as if it's tea, from a small cup with a handle that you might imagine in the hands of an english woman sitting on a pavilion at an afternoon game of cricket in Colonial India. Sat in the shade of course, because only mad dogs and English MEN go out in that midday sun.

i hear the sound of drums, like a heartbeat coming from somewhere within this inner city apartment building. at last I am beginning to see signs of life. voices and the sound of traffic from outside remind me that the suburban life in old browntown is becoming a past memory.change always brings with it the fear of the unknown. fear and excitement are the same thing. yes, you read a book about that once.

and so it seems, change is once again in the cards.