After an exciting journey through the Indian countryside, gripping the edge of my seat as we drove up misty mountains with poor visibility exacerbated by the glare of headlights on the road, my fear undimmed by the cautionary government signs warning of such catastrophes as falling rocks up ahead and tyres bursting due to overspeeding, I arrived in the busy traffic of Mumbai city once again, where the silent feud between myself and the driver over our choice of listening material - Saturday night Bollywood pop or Indian classical music - became entertaining as we flipped from radio station to radio station. And yes, I know that was a really long sentence.
A paragraph composed of just one sentence! What an interesting thought! (a la the flirtatious Ms Briganza of the classic Hindi film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in response to one of her students' declarations, 'pyaar dosti hai' - love is friendship. Ms Briganza has a very interesting, upper middle class Anglo Indian accent.) Yes, an interesting thought indeed, but how else do you symbolise that you have so much to say and so little time and space? Circumstances are pressing me forward to move the frame of my narrative away from the Indian subcontinent, and yet I still have so many stories to tell about elective. There's my searing village visit with the mobile health team on my last day when I was called upon to use previously taught skills for the first time in reality -breaking bad news, multicultural communication skills, clinical data interpretation, facing ethical dilemmas - as I discussed a diagnosis of metastatic lung cancer with the social worker, who served as an intermediary for the patient's mother, while the aged patient herself sat in front of us, her true state of health kept concealed from her by everyone - even the big city doctors who charged exorbitantly for a battery of tests but didn't bother to explain them to the illiterate patient. But which dying person doesn't know deep down what is really happening? So many interesting clinical stories to tell, so much analysis and so many learning points, and yet I have to move on - condense them with commas and hyphens and overlong sentence, condense them because
I have already been in Chatrapati Shivaji intenational airport, gateway to India. I have already waited over 5 hours before my flight is open for check-in, watching the departing families, classifying the travellers into business and holiday and long term emigration. Seeing the other side of Heathrow and JFK and where else, appreciating that everyone comes from somewhere. I've already seen the builders in the Qatari Ramaddan heat and felt the movements of the earth, as people go round and ceilings go up. I've swapped my red passport for a green one now, wondering at the unfriendliness of my newfound compatriots. Compatriots? It seems like the word fellow is alien to here - nobody smiles, people only stare. There's no courtesy between strangers; are people recognised as fellow travellers, let alone fellow citizens? The flight is funny: bawling babies, women singing loudly, hand luggage that would form the entire export output of a small nation, people chatting on mobile phones even as the plane taxis, others exclaiming in aghastment...and yet, we press on. I've moved on.
Then there's the return to the motherland, the surprise at the landscape; yes, the red earth and the forests are recognised, but why does everything look so small? The tin roofs of buildings two stories high swarm the eye view, red like the earth. Is this the megacity? Still we press on, into the crush of arrivals, the escape from officials asking about Yellow Fever Certificates, the confused mess of immigration, the loving arms of family, the horrendous traffic, the cleaner city (but apparently only in some parts), the overwhelming sense of selfishness, the sapping of energy. This is not just metaphorical or personal: the constant drone of generator sets is part of the backround melody in this city's cacophonous song, if you would call it that, and I wouldn't, for by now I am cynical at the sophistry of the litterati and refuse to be a part of image moulding, white washing. So I can say categorically, frankly, and without any reservations, that I hate Lagos. Yes, I said it. But that's OK, because already it's time to move on to another city, which is to Lagos what Pune is to Mumbai. If Pune is the Oxford of the east, what is Ibadan? We'll see...
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