During an essential-for-the-soul stopover in London town, I lived in Brixton for a while. I say lived, even if it was for four or five days because Brixton is many lifetimes, led simultaneously, side by side, and in constant transit.
In an instant it felt like I had lived here long, and am not just a curious cat passing through, poking through the alleys and jumbled streets, writing notes and window-shopping, contemplating Caribbean foods and sage sticks at the mystic store run by Sri Lankans.
I lived with beloved friends in a strangely constructed block of box houses; the building a delightful case of Brutalist architecture. It is the sort of architecture I currently greatly love passing past, stopping by, seeing photographs of, marvelling at its coldness.
The building used to be “rough” I am told, “not a place you would come to if you didn’t live there or didn’t know anyone who did.” Now, of course, the neighbourhood is being all gentrified and these blocks are becoming the cooler postcodes to live in. The breeze is getting colder and I find myself pulling my jacket closer already.
The season I fall for
I shall not be around for full-blown winter though, but long enough to revel in the gorgeousness that autumn, my most favourite of seasons, brings.
There I was, that morning, waiting for a friend outside the Brixton tube station when a tall man wearing frilly black panties, a barely-there length of cloth passing off as a skirt, bare chested except for perfectly round fake breasts tied across it, sauntered by. No one looked at him, except perhaps for the briefest second. That is why I love London, even if people are rude and the streets are crowded and polluted.
A place in my heart
Cities are difficult places, feelings for them never remain the same for more than a day. Yet London has the largest bit of my heart. If I could, I would live in London for a few weeks a year, hang around, walk everywhere, see art, sit in cafés, bask in the late summer sun, read, walk some more. This light-headedness for London will remain a few days more, until I begin to notice why I live in dread of the shape and smell of all cities.
For now, I am at Brixton Market Row in a café, chosen deliberately for how empty it is.The chef makes me an off-the-menu veg pasta with excessive butter and cheese. Just before that, I visited the artist studios of friends at Somerset House, then took myself to Tate Modern, along the Queen’s Walk, along the dirty Thames. I crossed the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul’s Cathedral to pick up some walking guide books from the tourist centre, crossed back, walked to Borough Market and found it way too crowded. I bought myself a slice of too sweet Victoria sponge and then a sushi box, and stopped by at the Barbican Centre because Banksy had made two new works outside its halls. A full day about town, a carb heaven in that cheesy pasta — it turned out to be the perfect day in the city of my heart.
When not flâneuse-ing someplace and writing about it, the writer can be found at the mercy of her brood of rescued mutts.
Published - March 17, 2018 04:27 pm IST
