From the first time I took a ride from a bicycle rikshaw cabby in India I was hooked. I was exhilarated beyond measure by the casual way the driver weaved his way at top speed through the hideously disorganized and misshapen traffic configurations of New Delhi, deftly swerving in and out behind mini-trucks and ox-wagons driven by five-year-old, dread-locked and sooty-faced peasant children. I did not know fear; sometimes I turned right around, and faced backwards, into the mob of advancing rikshaws. They also were driven by furiously cycling cabbies, like my own. I could stare straight into their souls: behind their wild and concentrated eyes, their skin glistening with oil, their simple cotton shirts flapping in the wind on the frame of their thin bodies; hard at work negotiating the tiny, changing spaces they were able to claim in front of their wheels, at breakneck speed, without mercy, successfully, year after year, a whole life long.

The delicious peril I knew in those Pahar Ganj streets was one of complete faith, accepting total deliverance to a skilled cabby who took chances at a moment’s notice, with the calm and keen eye of a B52 gunner.

Now I cycle (on my own bike) through the organized and regimented streets of a northern European Social Welfare State Democracy, where the hedges are trimmed with a municipal toenail clipper. And here we pay our taxes for immaculately asphalted streets, with their multi-coloured bike lanes and yield signs, and count-down precision-time-indicating stop lights, (which give you the exact status of your wait, by means of a string of little white pin-lights, in a circle, counting down the seconds before you may advance). But, no matter the price of precision, the peril is greater, more aggravating and life-threatening than anything I have ever experienced anywhere, ever before.

And so, on the Monday, I brought my kids home from school; another day for them in the Institution for the Young. (It is not a church, they only teach you to believe in the written word of science, so it’s okay.) I cycle home, and midst cycling, throw my eldest a key, so he can let himself in. I am going to the bakery, to get… bread. Indicate, a glance over the shoulder, take that turn, and check myself: my bike, my space, check for intruders, and here they come: three young teenage girls, shiny plastic black jacket, furry hoodie; lipstick, loop earrings. High-heeled boots, with the tassels. Her friends, a version of the same: Adidas jacket, retro patent leather kitbag, with orange and red lines on it; latest fashion. I am thinking ‘where do they get the money?’, when they swerve, three in a row, without any fuss, without slowing, without looking, right in front of my front wheel, cut me off, and make a right into the next road. I am recovering, half on a pavement where an old lady is tottering around with a mal-nutritioned, spindly little grey cur; and a young mother with two small, pasty-faced children, tottering just like the granny.

“Hey!!!” I yell. “You stupid bitches!!! Where’d do learn to cycle like idiots?? What hole did you just crawl out of to share your disease with?? Or are you just fucking inconsiderate???!!”

They are looking over their shoulder despite their coolness, the eyes narrowing a little, but amused. They do not care, after all: no one else exists.

“Come back here, and I will totally give you a lesson in road-use, because your style amounts to horse-bollocks! Stupid fuckin’, semi-retarded bitches! Come over here, and I’ll tell you!!”

I go to the baker. I reluctantly buy a loaf of bread with a texture of a cleaning sponge, which needs a PLU number of thirty digits before the salesperson can ring up one fifty. Now I have had my dosage of raw and savage frustration, picked clean to the bloody bone. And I still have to cook; prepare a meal and take my little son to his Judo-lessons.

Toward end of the afternoon in between saving children from see-thru leeches hauled from the underside of their new raft which miraculously stick to their necks in spite of high pitch screaming and jolts from jumping around; manage to provide a wholesome, balanced meal of vegetables and grains in various colours and textures, and my kids won’t touch it. They prefer pasta, they say, with a pureed tomato sauce. No bits, please. Salad, maybe.

We go to the Judo hall, way down past where they are giving the derelict, poverty-stricken neighbourhoods of the poorly-adjusted a face-lift. With a bit of city-funding the abject conditions behind those walls, the forced circumcisions on kitchen tables, the oppressed wives and confused men-children will all not be even less visible, or even suspected.

We cycle into oncoming traffic, as the bike path is still a construction site, my young son’s surfer hair blowing in the wind, as he sings his way to Judo.

The Judo hall is in the black neighbourhoods, so I lock my bike. It’s a jungle out here. Inside the entrance hall is the lady with the thin mouth. She glares out from behind her little spectacles, forcing herself to smile at all the little hateful children. She is sort of dangerous-looking. I am not going to pick a fight with her; I will show myself from my competent side; I will show the ability to put things in perspective; understand the limitations of given discourse; embrace differences.

My son changes into his wonderful Judo suit and I take a seat in the practice hall, switching off my phone as I go. I had to take my shoes off, too – this is a no-shoes area, it is strict; the website said so, and the sign on the door says it, too. The place fills up with parents, eager to watch their little saplings do the rumpus on the mat. I get cross-legged on the bench and prepare to absorb the wonderful teachings of the Master Judoka, in his white-and-red-striped Judo belt. He is a rough- and lovable looking man of about sixty, who stands square on bare feet, hands open at the ready. He talks to kids. He doesn’t spare them if they are up to shit and don’t know how to act normal. He had been doing this for more than forty years and everybody gets it.

In comes the mother of that little girl. The only little girl in the group; the cute one with the very curly blonde hair in a plait, and here comes her mom. She sways along in her tights and miniskirt, pushing Chanel sunglasses up onto her head. She is puncturing the training mat with her high heels as she waffles along. Long blond hair, like her daughter. She comes and sits at the end, next to me, and starts text-messaging someone. The Judo trainer comes over, and stands next to her at the end, looking at the lesson casually, and then launches into conversation with her. No me – her. She is glamorous, her long hair flowing, time has been taken to groom that look; it has a touch of wildness, she is not House-and-Town groomed, she is a bit of a vixen, with large, speaking blue eyes. He doesn’t look at her much, but starts rambling about how the competitions are set up, and what he expects of this group, who have migrated from their school Judo trainer, who did a shyte job, according to him. She is hum-humming along with him, looking interested. I am thinking: ‘How come does she just come in here with her fucking shoes on!?! Has she no respect!? What the fuck is this?? A free-for-all? And the phone! Turn off your life, man! Show ability!’

He is still talking to her, not to me. He is the boss around here, and he is not telling her to take her fucking shoes off. I suppose they are real leather, and new, and so stylish that she would look like a fish-wife if she were to take them off. We would see her disgusting toes; the one part of her body she will conceal from the world forever. Well, I am a secret beauty, I think; so THERE. I don’t have to prove it every mother-fucking day. I’ll lie in my grave, and they will all nod and say to each other: ‘yes, she was a true beauty. She didn’t have to show it every day.’ That’s what they will say. ‘The rest didn’t amount to much, but boy was she a looker.’

The end of the lesson approaches, and Madame is beginning to sway out. The entrance hall is getting a bit cramped, so I leave too, to GET MY SHOES. The entrance hall is filling up with the students for the next Judo class. They are all much older; teenagers; boys and girls. I am scrunched up against the wall so that the door can open, one shoe half on; the other in my hand. I can’t go anywhere, and I am wondering when this bunch of bored, oversized mothers who have been able to hide their bodies during the lesson so well, will finally move out of the way, since they are just waiting, and have their shoes on. In come the girls. Black plastic shiny jacket with the fur hoodie; loop earrings and lipstick. High-heeled boots with tassels, etc. They will have to get changed. And I will be in time to see their belts before my son is ready to go.

Here they come, forth from the girls’ changing rooms, tightening their belts and laughing with one another. Barefoot. Brown belt; black belt, brown belt; in their crisp white Judo suits. It is the girls from the bikes, the stupid bitches who can’t cycle; who are too cool to slow down. They look at me; I look at them. Haha. This is weird. ‘What the fuck!’ says the one to the other ‘Marco has his brown belt!’ I slip outta there, quick.

End.

“…we surfed freakland & yet we never slid into that morass of free peoples mediocrity…” says my friend Gavin to me now, February 2010.

Gavin is an old buddy; an ancient buddy. I met Gav somewhere in South Africa, and we hung out in Yeoville in the nineties, on Rockey Street, in Johannesburg. Rockey street, with all its mayhem, all its flotsam and jetsam, it’s street junks and goths and its Lizard Lounges and tatoo parlours; Rockey Street, that changed the direction of its one-way traffic flow on a yearly basis. Rockey Street’s Ba Pita – the Israeli hummous-and-pita joint, with colourful  Kenyan kikois hanging from the ceilings, and waitresses walking on 10-inch thick thigh-high boots, displaying twenty-two visible piercings, shredded black pantyhose and nipple-revealing red tank tops. You parked your car only where you could see it, and paid a twelve year old Angolan war refugee 5 bucks to guard it from the drug peddlar scene across the road, in the night, who stood in the light of the corner café trying to talk passers-by into buying a cup of glue. The nights were hot, seething, long, and exhilirating.

This was the scene in which I met Gavin. Later we travelled together, hitchhiked across South Africa in trucks; drinking the drunken driver’s Brandy while singing “Me and Bobby McGee” to keep him awake, til the sun came up. Gavin took photos, drummed on his djembé, and today still walks the Joburg life. If it is the same; I doubt it. I know that Rockey Street had its hundreth transformation and is now a vile and dangerous place where no white face darkens any doorstep of any relic of the past. The ‘scene’ moved successfully to Melville’s 2nd Avenue, and never came back. Now you hang out at ‘Full Stop’ for breakfast, and the ‘Question Mark’ for drinks, later. To see and be seen under the heavenly lilac hues of the towering Jacaranda trees.

Where exactly Gav hangs out now, I don’t know, because I haven’t been there in so long. But I reckon he didn’t stop, either; he’s still evolving. It is a pity friends are so remote in this enormous world. Digital information technology helps to bridge some gaps, and occasionally, when one is not too blasé about the ease of a social interface like FaceBook, then some real information may even come across. About how somebody is REALLY FEELING. Wow. Those are precious moments. The thing is, you may not even want that all the time. Mediocrity has its place, and gives interaction the dynamic it needs to facilitate more valuable exchange. And in this way, Gavin’s remoteness becomes slightly arbitrary.

I have moved on and graze a different pasture. Rotterdam is my oyster of social irresponsibility now, where I observe delinquency behind the curtain of a mature democracy. Oh, Rotterdam, I hope I will get to know you like I once knew and loved Johannesburg. And my friend Gavin – can come and take a look. [ACN]

Walking the Streets of Rotterdam in late December 2009,

The night is dark and so very cold tonight as I shuffle along Rotterdam’s spinal cord – the Westersingel. I am heading for Rotterdam’s central station, and it’s way past 10 pm. My side of the street seems asleep, in the darkness. All of sudden a door bursts open at the top of some steep steps, and two wayward women laugh and talk as they come trampling down into the cold, and careen across the empty street to the iced-over ‘gracht’, where they’ve spotted somebody to ask for a light.

I change over to the other side of the road – by crossing a modern promenade with sculptures, over a bridge, a carriageway, and the tram tracks, to reach the far pavement. The shop fronts are lit up; and I want to see inside. I am invisible in my big navy blue overcoat, an observer tonight. I walk past a designer café with an avant-garde interior, with ‘bare essentials’ in a minimalistic retro-style.

The next place is older and less concerned with appearances: a traditional “bruin café”, as they are called here. Behind small panes of dirty glass, and probably geraniums, a host of people mingle in dim light on large leather chairs and rickety bar stools, in and amongst dusty musical instruments and piles of newspapers; everything is brown, also the beer. Young and old are deep in conversation. Their underwear sticks out when leaning forward to get the peanuts; the air should be smoky, only it is not. I go right up to the window pane, press my nose against the glass, and peer in, looking straight into their life. And, with my face still 5 centimetres from the glass I move on, along the window front to the next establishment, only to come face to face with a man staring straight back into mine, his face almost bursting with excitement. I start back, to then focus on a face making inaudible sound: we are separated by the thick glass in front of a Chinese Restaurant – and he is on the inside, pre-occupied with his caller, as he presses a tiny cell phone up against his enormous pink head. He had probably excused himself to take the call, and now stares straight into my face, with all his exuberance. Chinese Restaurant indeed: you could see all the sweet and sour pork in the texture of his skin.

However it may be; the observation is made without judgement, and I am coming to realise that it is possible to see and not judge. I almost can’t stop myself from seeing everything lately, all the pockmarks of civilisation, all the heritage in people’s features, the struggle and the Lonely and the Rum. And with it the realisation that at least part of me belongs right here where I am.

I walk on to the station, reading poetry on the street tiles, and being literally dwarfed by the immense bank buildings, now covered in flickering Christmas lighting. I pass Moroccan boys who think they are men; and, mind they don’t spit on your shoe, but if they do, they will say they’re sorry, because they truly didn’t mean it. I see a handful of policemen and women doing a ‘caution frisking’; their subject is up against the wall of a Döner Kebab joint, standing star-shaped while the police patiently pad down their trouserlegs; and the crowd looks on, spitting.

Next door is a high-brow Chinese establishment, catering to top-notch Chinese businessmen (yes! I didn’t know they existed; I thought they all sold 3-Euro patent-leather moneybags on the Thursday market, the world over). This brand of Chinese corporate high-rollers dine on exquisite dumplings and sweet and sour duck at spacious tables, while they talk business with an occasional glance at the pavement, where low-life Rastafarians do the limp-stride past the window, and the little Chinese Tattoo-shop owners shuffle along, and sultry dark-skinned Mamas with hair extensions and patent leather high-heeled boots promenade through the cold, pushing prams while punching in text-messages, their bright lipstick shimmering in the streetlamps.

But the Chinese family business appears to be alive and well –  see them strolling in for dinner at dusk, with all members in tow: a luxuriously dressed and modern Chinese family: wives toting babes, sisters and grandmothers in fine suits of black and lace, with flowing collars and fine jewellery. Running in front with her scooter is the three-year old daughter, her lush carpet of jet-black hair spilling out over an immaculate suit of red felted wool, complete with lapels till far over the shoulder, and with large white pompoms bouncing on her white leather boots. There she goes, skipping into the restaurant she knows so well.

A few yards further there are more officers on duty. They are in a friendly discussion with an elderly person who is using his motorised perambulator to display soup packets, peppermints and chewing gum, and he will make a sandwich for you, on demand. The cops are kind and tolerable, and are telling him he needs a licence for this sort of vending. It is true that the last time I ever saw someone trying to pull a stunt like this was in South Africa.

On the station platform there are some twenty-something college girls, coming home from a late lesson at the academy, and they now stand discussing their cultural identity. “How could he have just called me “black” like that?” –the one pitch-black Surinamese-of-African-decent Beauty says in contempt to the other. Her friend is hardly listening, but is hunched over, furiously typing in a text message to somebody. Oh yes, I now realise I just heard the signal myself: and I whip out my own phone to read my very own text-message. Now I am typing away swiftly with my thumb, jogging my feet against the cold. On my other side a Dutch couple are in conversation, a generation away. She is complaining about something inexorably boring and he is enduring it, but now they are both distracted by me, and watch me as I type this message. To them, I am a product of this age of exponentially accelerating technology; to me it is just default nurturing. So now, for that train. I wonder, will the homeless guy with the guitar be there again? Any Rastafarians in three-colour jogging suits? Just spare me any young children who ought to be in bed, and then the night is my oyster. [ACN]