Suburban life

"You live in the suburbs. It's a shithole, man! Dump it. You should flee and migrate to the cities."

That's what they said.

Listen! Yes – you guys. I'm summoning you. Do not badmouth just because you hate something. The same place provoking revolutions, mould ingenious innovations and multiple such fallacies over all these years. It is that same ghetto giving birth to star figures – Pele, Bezos, Mandela – all came up here. Those graffiti walls act like trademarks of inspiration to fight through culture and non-violence. Caricatures ransacking barges at the aristocracy, manipulating diplomats, Satan – a bunch of ideas already in your bag to write your own book.

Guessed my agenda? Good! Damn, right, you did! I belong here - to these suburbs.

Since you boast a pessimistic genre of hatred, I authorise my heart and soul to trash yours truly. Sincerely speaking, this is no heaven. Vendetta of vengeance, sabotage of rivals, a drug meth-lab – meh, this is nothing! Any personal experience? Maybe. Sarcasm is all over the places - no stones have been kept unnoticed. Those stinking roadside garbage dumps earn loads to jeer you – "Ha, Ha, Charade you are!"

Probably you will spend some more days in darkness; not eat the food you longed for – a typical scenario of compromise. Every morning, you ought to get heads banged by dishwasher's daily tantrums or washerwoman's bashing of the wardrobes. Who knew this would become our very own alarm clock! Children throng the community park on hearing Ferrywaala's wailing arrival bring back those days from Kobiguru's novels. We would eagerly wait for the 'Matka kulfi' caravan and quench our thirst of respite. Such stuff still exists!

Still from Kabuliwala, a 1957 Bengali feature film (based on the novel Kabuliwala by Rabindranath Tagore)

Living in the suburbs isn't trendy. Lacklustre, backward, dull, boring - all such adjectives will tag along whenever people tell about here. On the other hand, it teaches one to survive within limits barring any holistic extravaganza. A hub for the working-class population, you smell the odour of honest labour and a well-earned treasury, running the nation's engines since Independence. Doubters always exist - accuse with claims of so-called 'poor hygiene'. We prefer to turn it around as a motivation for natural enhancement of immunity. Maybe you should learn from us.

You get to appreciate Jhaaruwaala's honk or Phuchkawaala's call of 'Aaya hain maanpasand waala phuchka'. Your estates, your cities won't have that. Lush green fields alongside canals propel teenagers every evening to shoot at the goalie, gobsmack the ball over midwicket for six and jump one scratch box to the adjacent one murmuring 'keet-keet-keet'. Do city dwellers play? I don't think so. They have been virtualised a tad too much, too soon. At dusk, the Holy dive of these hustlers begin. Ponds cramp for spaces, yet no one complains at all. A rare scene of prosperity and togetherness filled with emotion. Climbing trees for mangoes and guavas, flying kites; catching fishes a mere transfer of inherited genes generation over a generation. It exists and will stay for times to arrive.

Dusk and Kites - a long-term association (Calcutta by Gaslight, Projit Bihari Mukharji, UPenn)

No one, not even single suburb of large cities ever featured high profile restaurants, shopping malls, bars, gaming parlours, nor amusement parks. It never will. Modes of artificial fun fetch you what? Some hours or minutes of happiness. The still-poignant Nature undisturbed by destructive hands of development takes care of that. An hour by the Ganges promises a remedy of pleasure and nirvana at the same instant. The evening aarti has mesmerised the audience for aeons and will keep on doing so till Faith survives amongst us. Such randy instances would crumble all your hopes of surreal accusations.

The journeys of life. (null_simpleton)

Finally, time to conclude with some reasonable words.

You need to live where you love to do so or are happy enough. However, that does not liberate you to launch scathing, derogatory bombshells at others who have these out of bounds or just only not willing to change. Remember, life's a blessing. Try being happy and keeping others happy. That'll be great.