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9pm. Begona metro station. Walking down the stairs. Ticket counter. Waving at the lady behind the glass. We are friends. One euro for Chueca, Madrid’s Paharganj. Now running down the escalators. Turning right. A long corridor. Left. Escalators again. Platform. Four minutes for the next train. Sitting down on the floor. Reading Mansfield Park (bought from a bookstore in Callao; three euros).

The train coming. No hurry. The train stopping, doors opening. Getting up, casually; entering the train. Feeling cent percent Madridi. Suddenly, a music man appearing; he is starting to play his tunes. The sound vibrations flooding into the ears, creating chemical reactions inside the brain, the heart. Being washed with sadness. Time is disappearing fast. Within twelve hours I will have to catch the flight to Delhi…

… Hey, Plaze De Castilla station…

… I don’t want any longer to be a Delhiwalla. I want to be a Madridian. The air here is cleaner, the sky bluer, the museums livelier, the people gentler. The traffic courtesies are kind to pedestrians. The paella is good, the wine sweet. No dust, no smog; cafe tables right on pavements. True, there are beggars, but not many. And so many people here read.

I don’t want to be back in Delhi…

… Hey, Gregorio Maranon…

… Breathing in Madrid is like re-reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera - in original Spanish. Romance hangs down from apartment balconies, like wet T-shits from clotheslines. People kiss in bus stops, hold hands in bars. Passion, which in Delhi could only be felt, becomes a touchable stuff here, especially during the flamenco meals…

… Hey, Alonso Martinez…

… and there is no type of love in Madrid that is fearful to speak its name. Here you are free to express your basic instincts.

No mam, I don’t want to go back to Delhi…

… Hey Chueca, my stop!

Adios Madrid.

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Posted by Mayank Austen Soofi on Monday, September 28, 2009 at 6:23 pm 
Filed under Musings · Tagged Chueca, Delhiwalla, escalators, Madrid, Madrid's Paharganj, Madridian, Plaze De Castilla station, Reading Mansfield Park

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