Showering mysteries

‘The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air. I could smell it before I saw or heard anything of India, even as I walked along the umbilical corridor that connected the plane to the airport. I was excited and delighted by it, in that first Bombay minute, escaped from prison and new to the wide world, but I didn’t and couldn’t recognize it. I know now that it’s the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it’s the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It’s the smell of gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. It’s the blue skin smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the Island City, and the blood metal smell of machines. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches and mosques, and of a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. Karla once called it the worst good smell in the world, and was right, of course, in that way she had of being right about things. But whenever I return to Bombay, now, it’s my first sense of the city – that smell, above all things – that welcomes me and tells me I’ve come home.’

- Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts

So that’s what it is – that smell. It’s true. The first thing you notice about Bombay is the different air. It smells different and you can’t quite put your finger on it. This is the best description I’ve come across.

I’ve become somewhat an insomniac. I laid awake in bed, tossing and turning, till two in the morning and the effect has been there all day. It’s a sort of ache at the back of my left eye which will go (I know) after I get some sleep but I refuse to sleep now because by the time I hit the sack at night, I want to fall asleep! So I’m trying to load up the hours of sleep I need and pay it all off at night. It’s torturous when sleep doesn’t come. I think it’s close to the worst feeling in the world. What’s the absolute worst feeling in the world? Hmmmmm.

Today has been normal. We finally did our book review presentation in Socio and she was really happy, which is not so big a deal. I almost cried watching our own presentation though. Just the part on Anne Frank. We put together a lot of pictures of her along with quotes from her diary and there was music in the background. The effect is quite something. But the point is not what WE did. Anne Frank… the things she said, the way she thought, the way she wrote. What happened to her… There’s no real adjective to describe it. If you say, it was ‘touching’, it seems so fake. ‘Amazing’ – too superficial. There’s just no way. Read it for yourself.