Mykel Goes to India Entry 2

Entry Two , 

October 5, 2018


I lost it yesterday… on the street… not far from to the world famous train station. I was already pissed off. My Indian pals… the ones I’m staying with… AND the Lonely Planet Guide say it’s the most famous “modern” landmark in India.

[Note to Millennials: A guide is a book that lists important points on where you should visit and what you should avoid. A book is a bunch of paper pages, bound on one side with printed words on most of the pagers. There are also some pictures. To scroll from one part of a book to another, it is necessary to turn the pages. Check YouTube for instructions on how to open, read, and bookmark a book. Control-D does NOT work to bookmark a book.]

I’m talking about Victoria Terminal, the most famous building in Mumbai. Built in the 1800s when India was a British colony, it is huge, beautiful and still in use. I took the train from Borivale (a sort of Brooklyn of Bombay) to Churchgate… then decided to walk the rest of the way to Victoria. Google maps was not cooperating with my phone, so I decided to ask strangers for directions. [If you don’t know what asking for directions is, you can also check YouTube for instructions.]

I ask a young guy who removes one of his headphones. I ask again. He shrugs. I ask an old woman, sitting on a bench, wearing a beautiful Sari. She doesn’t even look at me. I ask and ask again. I get shrugs. I get sorry. I get I don’t know. I get a double tilt of the head… like the Bulgarian body language for yes. But here it either means I don’t know or Fuck You! The most famous building in town and they don’t know? It would be like a New Yorker in mid-town saying she doesn’t know where the Empire State Building is. They just don’t want to tell me, that’s what it means. It’s a goddamn World Heritage Site!

The streets are crowded. Most people walk on the left, like in Japan, but there are jostlers who walk any which way and push you out of their way if you are too slow for them. For the last few blocks, I’m pushed more than I like.

The crowd thickens A fat guy… even shorter than me... shoulders me aside and walks on ahead. I run to catch up with him. Put both hands on his back and shove him hard enough to make him stumble. He turns his head and glares back at me… I’m the whitest person in the tunnel so I’m hard to miss.His fist tighten… but he’s in a hurry… I hold back. He decides his train is more important than my chin… and keeps walking.

“Culture! Culture!” I whisper to myself. “Don’t make judgments without context, Mykel. Cultures are different.”

I keep asking random people on the street. “Where Victoria Terminal?” They shrug Or tilt their heads in a completely ambiguous gesture… the kind people use to shake water out of their ears when they come in from swimming.

I’m mad! They know! They’re just not telling me. Pretending they don’t know English… What are they, French? Is it my skin color? That I don’t speak the local (of over 200) language? Bad breath? Shrug after shrug.

A few cops… older guards at government buildings… they give me vague that way directions. It takes an hour or so, but I find it. An extremely spectacular building that you can enter through a tunnel underground.

Pretty hard to miss, don’t you think? Those assholes must’ve known. They were just fucking with me, the fuckin’ fucks! Jeez! What’s wrong with you people? When I get to the building… people push past me to enter to buy train tickets. It’s really a cool-looking place, and, I hear, one of the only World Heritage Sites still used for the purpose it was built. That pisses me off even more.

THEY KNOW!! THEY ALL KNOW!! THEY’RE JUST NOT TELLING ME.

Then, I see the plaque… black on gold:

The name was changed in 1996. Nobody born before 1975 is gonna know what Victoria Terminal is? They know it as Chhatrapati Shiva Maharaj… I can’t even say that.… Victoria is from 2 centuries ago! Before I was born! They we’re fucking with me, they just didn’t know what I was talking about.

Sometimes, I feel like such a jerk.

-end-

If you want to read more of my, you can read my punk, social, political, writing at: https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com. Comments are welcome. You can also contact me at: god@mykelboard.com or find me on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mykel.board