Won’t you take me to Funkytown?

by Nishi Shroff

Image Source: Sellerby.com

I don’t want to be a hypocrite, but it isn’t easy to live in a city where moving just half-an-inch, in any direction, means stepping on somebody’s toes, literally. I would also like to breathe fresh air, but when I sit at a promenade I can still inhale Marlboro fumes. I most definitely don’t want to be a hypocrite.

There are billboards all over the place and nobody cares what’s on them, you learn how to tune it all out when there’s so much clutter thrown at you. What worries me are the lakhs and crores in ad spends, especially when a child is crapping on the corner of a busy junction, right below a bank’s hoarding.

I have learnt not to worry, but I don’t want to be a hypocrite. And then there are parties where everyone’s busy keeping up appearances. I recently walked in to one and felt like everybody was there for the free booze and not the host. Some are scouting for gossip, I have been the gossip before, believe me it’s like 15 seconds of fame, you’re notorious only until the next guy ‘screws up’. You should get over it.

I particularly hate it when I feel like ‘we’ve had this conversation before’, because I could be having an engaging conversation with someone else. I don’t want to be a hypocrite, but you can’t always expect me to charm you. If your idea of fun is shopping on crowded streets, why do you think I enjoy it too?

I like to have more than a square foot of space to myself. It doesn’t make me any different from you. What’s really funky about this town is the talk. You hate everyone because you want to be loved and respected by everyone. If people talk about you, you’re saying ‘mind your own business’. If they don’t, you’re thinking ‘nobody loves me; I’m not getting my dues’.

It would really help if people knew what they wanted. Bosses try to be best friends and best friends try to boss over you. It’s confusing. I don’t want to be a hypocrite, so I’m my own boss and now, I’m my own best friend. The guys are my true buddies, they’re so easy to be around, but I’m still a little contemptuous. Don’t look at her legs if you’re going to call her a ‘slut’. 

Anyhow, there’s much else going down. Mother-in-laws, they are real, unlike fairies out of Enid Blyton’s stories. And the general attitude is to let others suffer the way you did, instead of going easy on them because you know what it’s like. We need education, not just literacy. I’m not a hypocrite when I say I know what it’s like to rough it out.

It could have been worse, no doubt. I also know that when you stiffen that upper lip, you expect everybody else to do so too. It’s difficult to be patient, but empathy is better than apathy. Trust me when I say this, there’s more satisfaction in compassion.

I may be a bit of hypocrite, but everybody is. So what if you don’t fit in to definitions? Not only are you breathing in my hair (this actually happened and it wasn’t a lover) besides my air; but you also expect me to conform and you’re always twisting my words.

In fact I’m sure your image of me is far more glamorous and entertaining, than who I really am (even if you don’t think well of me). How about being natural and allowing everyone to just be. This is a city of slum dwellers and underdogs, you have nothing to lose. 

I don’t want to be a hypocrite but when Baz Luhrmann suggested sunscreen, he should have proposed drinking more water too. The sun won’t let up, even during winters. So yes, the weather is actually good for small talk; but after all the smog, the alcohol, the junk food, the heat and the ‘bullshit’ you’ve been swallowing through the day; water, at room temperature, helps.

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Nishi Shroff has completed a Post Grad in Journalism from the London School of Journalism. At present, she's enjoying the status of being a 'struggling artist'. She conducts Creative Writing and Self Development workshops and spends most of her time convincing people of the positive outcomes of meditation.

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