A couple of nights ago the kids and I were coming back from somewhere, late at night and they decided they didn’t want to have a homecooked dinner.
We’d already reached home, so we walked out and found a Subway and picked up sandwiches. Then we sat and ate in a public park, enjoying the cold winter night, chatting away. Trucks passed by throwing up dust and noise. Autowalas teased each other. They were just the sounds of a city.
We walked home singing and dancing down the road, the Brat ignoring the Bean and me because he was beyond horrified by our behaviour. Eventually, he made peace with the crazy women in his family and walked close behind.
And as I got home I was thankful for where we were. We grumble every day about the pollution, the aggression, the big city lights and chaos. We all want to move to the hills or Goa, and bugger up those places too.
But that night what kept a woman and two kids safe, were the crowds of a city on the streets. It was the big city-ness that gave us a choice of meals in the middle of the night. Had we been in the middle of nowhere I’d be slaving in the kitchen trying to dish up something new. Or else the kids would just have to lump it!
As I sit in what is arguably one of the most unsafe cities in the country, I raise my kids in relative safety within a gated community that not every place offers. We might not be here very long, or we might be here forever. I don’t know.
But for now, what we have, where we are, is where we were meant to be. And we’re happy and love it. I want to put this down here for the next time I’m whining about it.
The Mad Momma 