Travelogue. Or something.

The summer of 2010, Orenburg, Russia. It's the quaint, sleepy town you've never heard of. The balconies with baskets of chrysanthemums, the shining horizon and no skyscrapers. Expanses of clarity. The warm sunbeams on your naked back, clear and watery, sans those golden flecks of dust. The parks and the walkways. Tulips everywhere. The houses, those structures you learn to draw in 2nd grade. The kind of cleansing coolness Ben Gibbard talks about. The air, clean and cold. Those evenings on the European terrace, staring at a part of Asia that sparkles in the distance. Right out of an Of Montreal song.

The museums, oh, they're pieces of languid history frozen behind glass doors. The people, so proud. "So how do you like our city?" I'd never call Delhi mine. Their soft voices, the streets devoid of conversation. Spasiba, which means thank you, resonates. So.. civilized. They talk in a neon blur. "Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear." Ye niye gavaryoo paruski, "I don't speak any Russian", becomes your new anthem. The place has it's own force, it calls out to art and literature. To creation. I've never drawn and read so much. The townsquare and the library, they transport and lift. The granite and the marble. The Russians revere their literature, statues of Pushkin at every other redlight. There’s culture in the cement and clay.

The Russian secretary. And her brother, her very hot brother. Who doesn’t speak English. Heh. The other secretary who passes out on my bed after 2 glasses of rum. The picnics and the strange food. The lines of bath and body stores, the salt scrubs! The pool. The super fast internet that downloads 8 gb worth of Star Wars in an hour! The live singing in the restaurants.

The Russian ballet and the opera.. oh god the opera. You know, how you read about it filling you with a deep sense of awe, pregnant with emotion? That’s a lie. It does, however, make you stop. And just stare. “Beautiful isn’t the right word but it’s the first word that comes to mind.” Such opulence, such splendour.

The war killed so many men. And now Orenburg is the feminist’s dream. Women run the city, you see them everywhere, in super markets and police cars, in the courts and the clinics. Women that look like supermdoels, make you want to work out. Their high heels and short skirts. An incipient matriarchy Virginia Woolf would bask in.

The deep seated communism. Where your dad's doctor is a taxe driver by day and your maid is a trained account on alternate weekdays. Where tiny tenements, brimming with families still exist. And on the other hand, the government gives you central heating and hot water, and medical insurance.

The bridge that divides Asia and Europe, with a river running through it. Bicycle rides, ice-skating and bowling. The nightclubs, with the dingy bars and the men who think I’m 14. Exotic but 14. Bollywood is popular. And for the record, I'm not Apu, neither is "jimmy jimmy aaja aaja" anythign CLOSE to a line. Pfft. They love your “tan”.

And what is this small town for a 19 year old, on the verge of entering what is going to be the hardest year yet? Time, so much time. To introspect. Character construction. Like those summer breaks in school when you discover music and art and literature that will define who you are for a long time to come. Complete seclusion, no phone. The leisure to draw, to sketch, find latent talents. To write. That idea for a book that will make you rich and famous, the easy way. All that underground music that will always remind you of this sombre, quiet time. Insomnia and catatonic fits. Late night conversations with the people closest to you. You know what I mean. The kind of soulspeak where all real epiphanies are made. Where you formulate opinions you will later use in those "intellectual" conversations with the ex.

The kind of vacation where you grow and feel older. That feeling you crave for every birthday but never experience? That feeling, right here, is tangible, you could wrap your hands around it and marvel.


..And in a week, Delhi will happen. In a week, everything will change. And I’ll go back, with Russian songs on my new Zune. And the sort of languorous maturity that makes you stop being a child, finally.