I should like to start the new year with answers to some of the questions. I wondered that at the end of my life I will have all my questions answered. I don't think so. As I grow, I seem to have more questions with no certainty of finality.
Anyway, I want to write about something that happened last year when we were in KL. I should love to put some pictures up but not now. Now, I am only in the mood for typing as fast as possible whatever there is that is needed to say. We went to KL with two friends from India. So we were staying in an apartment P&B Darby. Apartment overlook different aspects of KL. I liked the room we slept in it had a clear view of KL buildings. I am not a big architecture critic or anything like that. In fact, the gigantic, grotesque structures do scare me sometimes; the way they awesomely tower over me expanding my minuteness. And the crowded cities overwhelms me negatively. I feel pressured and hardly at ease. Cars flying by and people hurrying incessantly between now and then. You got to stop and catch your breathe every now and then. But putting aside all these negative structures, I think the aspects of a city are also magnificent. The way they look, sometimes shaped from different dimensions. Mostly this tainted windows at the differnt angles reflecting the sunlight. And then the city is also about people living together. Compactly framed almost to suit an ideology- the mordern nomads. Hardly nomadic but still constantly evoloving, upgrading and running through life. And yet all in one place. There is so much more fascintaing approaches to life in a city. I wonder if all the cities of the world have the same aroma-- and stench..
So, we watch the Petronas tower, Twin towers. All really cool, exciting! Yet it send chills up my spine to see the city busking in such gory excitement. And then the shopping, train, food, etc...
What was though a very exhilarating experiance and more personal one was our visit to another side of KL- Chinatown. I thought it would be as boring but alas! down with my skepticism! I was rebuke with that experiance. Chinatown is cramped and jammed. The multitude of people and the slow pace at which that thin human line squeeze through the small tentages of busisnesses. One never touched anything until one was sure she was going to get it. You touch and they press upon you to get it! Run! Flee! It was as if this people had such hard dignity when it came to fighting for life. Another kind of dignity- uncouth dignity. The revelation of the market. Every one for his own survival. I learn the trick and skill of bargaining. YEA! If you don't push it down I will just go to another and then we will get on with life. Walking around flaunting the power of demand so that I could push down the equilibrium price. Economics seems so real amidst the sweat and toil of the night heat and humidity and the scram at which every one was just doing as he saw fit. In essence, it was the rat race. TRADE. Merchants for the right price. I felt as if I was fighting for my survival- monetary survival. Alright, it was not that bad. But it was very tense, even mentally I was on the edge; physical I was strain and emotionally I was vexed.
I liked that experiance because firstly it was cruel yet real. So like everything I know is out there but scrapped off the outward superficiality. It was human beings at its worst and yet best- cunning foxes, wise foxes; however you see these brutes you know deep down when man are left in the survival of the fittest, out there in this modern jungle, it boils down to selfishness. But then maybe, just maybe for a tiny second there was humanness in that selfishness- the way people fought for their lifes. In that moment some things in life just stringed togehter so sensiblely.
After a while, I was tired. When we back that night, I really felt relief; I was safe in the apartment on the 13 story. I had a few success stories of good bargaining deals.
No comments:
Post a Comment