Found a darkish restaurant playing good music. Thought I would study, since that's what I do these days... study for my GREs whenever i have five minutes. I thought i might have a beer. Then two. then, oh! Happy hour! Jesus, that was four.

And suddenly i was drunk by myself.

Emerged into the dark.

I was soft. Tipsy, i admit. Somewhat melancholy, but only because they played 'november rain' as i got the cheque, and really that song + 4 beers would make a stone melancholy.

Onto the street and I wanted to walk. But one cannot just walk here... it's bad enough in the day, but in the night every feels just a bit more impecunious*. Strike that, it makes no sense. In the dark, people are bolder. They grope with impunity**. I set my jaw, I clenched my fists, and i marched.

So i marched [with set jaw]. I skipped over polio victims, i swerved round naked, limbless beggars. Orphaned waifs were dismissed with an imperious wave. Anyone who approaching me ("madam, handkerchiefs?" "change money madam?" "madam can i talk to you?"), received a crisp, polite "no thank you." Efficiency was the name of my game.

And the things i sped past! Pineapple carts; a single bicycle carrying FIVE chairs and a small table; people sleeping in the street (literally in the street, and no one stopped to check on them. Not I, efficiently floating to the other sidewalk. Traffic slowed, swerved around unconscious bodies like souped-up Civics at a speed bump).

I was flying, practically. I felt myself life up, up over the crowds. Here's a chain of five blind beggars feeling their way down the street, chanting as they go. There's a funeral procession, body resting on a wooden stretcher held high. Garlands of flowers obscure the body from view. A young boy bangs a pot, another rings a bell slowly. Only men in the procession. I don't know why.

To my left, the same man will try to sell me the same sleeping bag for the fiftieth man [cue: crisp 'no thank you']. To my right: a cute dog. Oh, he turns his head and half his skull is missing.

And my god, I did this in sandals! Dodging cow leavings, paan spittle, hawking men, street sweepers, and piles of garbage.

i feel i've been marching (intrepidly) forever... and suddenly, there it is. The overpowering stench of urine that means home.

I cover my nose with my scarf and duck past the public urinal at the head of the lane. Inch past the men queuing up to pee into a trough [and where do women go when they need to pee?]

100 metres

50 metres.

Small talk with the clerk.

And i am home. With thanks i duck into the very small, very sparse, but thankfully very clean cubicle i call home for $3.50 a day.

I will bathe (cold water only... geh). I will scrub my feet. I will was my clothes by hand for the billionth time and marvel that i ever complained about laundromats.

I will drink my bottled water and wait until i pee (no public bathrooms ANYWHERE) before i go out. But out i must go. You face delhi. You grab it by the horns and you march... or it sends you home crying.

So in an hour i'll head back out there into that craziness. A girl's got to eat.

*!!!GRE WORD!! It's working! Wait. no it's not. "impecunious" means lacking funds. Damn. No more beery study sessions.

**THAT is definitely a GRE word, and it's definitely right. all is not lost.

6:09 a.m. - 2004-10-19