how to write about a city
Familiar/Novel over-exposed photograph in need of saving acidic taste under tongue. in a house where nothing changes except for you and me long balcony. madman neighbour pacing back and forth in imaginary conversation 8th grade dog dying from neglect my best friends can all drive but i can’t i suppose they are all proud of me regardless. everyone is proud of me here. smoked my first cigarette on this road. drove past my first kiss pointed at my first tasmac flailing out of the uber adyar bridge police and my first run-in with the law city is sympathetic to the impatient railway station and we can’t walk for long — so the buggy takes us paati is 80 but insists she will receive her daughter at Central paati is 80 and insists she will inspect every room in the house before sleeping paati is 80 still walks to ganesh stores three times a day to buy groceries sullying a memory of wide-eyed fuckery 16 poking around on a roof drunk atop the water tank sitting on the hood of a car while the engine warms under your ass thatha thinks Stalin’s goons will abduct me in the dark night he's 90 but unsuccessful in his years of trying to reach America he's 90 and cannot hear (or listen) to others he's 90 learning laptop rules from me did you go to a typing institute? you’re as good as a stenographer annanagar trees canopy the vehicles and i don’t understand any of the new shops that have grown here will the city the same when everybody and everything is gone? in chennai the sticky bearing will be inside you and you will be consumed by its fucking abundance living in the decrepit house you grew up in
Nivi, this is phenomenal. These read like the musings of a person that is trying to be two ages at once but bereft of the conflict that would accompany such an endeavour. I secretly hope that you stay in Chennai for a longer period of time if you're managing to write like this.