I’m walking its streets, city of striking contrasts, two worlds tossed into each other, modern Babylon, shimmering glass high-rises, and the down-trodden crawling in squalor, luxury and homelessness frothing at the peripheries, where the unfortunate, the lost have come to suffer, to barely survive. Smiles are scarce, except in the twin towers’ shopping center.
What’s my role in all this? Why do I keep on landing in this polarized mess of hopes, of dreams, scooters, rats, the veil of Islam, the pujas of Hinduism, the call for prayer, the minarets, Chinatown and its thousand food stalls. Little India and it’s colors, Bollywood-style.
Where do I fit, when only I few days ago, I was where I ought to be, where my heart wished to be? A few buses, a train, an airplane, and all of it in less than a day, and here I stand, elsewhere, too far from you, too far from what I believe is right.
Then again, do I know what’s right? I’m as lost as ever, torn, hopeful, worried, determined, confused, a dreamer, a skeptic. To think that only a few moons ago, my world was so healthily-centered, on dawn, the moon, Venus, waves breaking, on a shore of rock and sand, and I was there, heart opened, completely at one with everything that is divine. Go figure….
