With my expansive
girth, I find London a very tight fit. My husband lovingly calls me a hobbit –
and it’s not because of hairy feet. I waddle along well below the national
height average but still get stuck between doorways, payment tills and public
places which my taller, slimmer compatriots have no issues navigating.
Yesterday,
for instance, we went to see the Chinese New Year celebrations in Trafalgar
Square. We reached a half hour early, but were told that there was no more
space for newcomers – fine hundred attendees and the place was full. In the
distance, I saw a large stage on which a Chinese diplomat droned on in extended
monotone. A colourful dragon stood behind, waiting for him to finish so that it
could start its dance. But we were not to witness the excitement, because
London has very little room for Londoners. So we followed the easily-resigned
hoardes into China Town. The main road (road is a misleading term – in London
they are basically the size of a suburban American footpath, dutifully carrying
the full load of taxis, double decker buses, cars, bikes all at once) was
clogged with more bodies. I moved into a side-lane and promptly got stuck
between blonde Nordic men and women who towered above my head and would have
stepped on me had my beloved husband not
whisked me away into a Turkish restaurant (which was roughly the size of my
mum’s bathroom in Karachi). I ate a baklava and waited for the cobbled streets
to clear before returning home.
Space is my one
constant enemy here. My fridge and freezer are the size of small side tables so
that grocery shopping must be done in bits and bobs. There is room, for
example, for 3 onions and 5 tomatoes and perhaps 2 lemons in the vegetable
section. To introduce a cucumber or aubergine into the mix is to incur violence
upon the plastic drawer that has since cracked in my efforts to make it hold
something a little more substantial. Items have to be piled precariously on top
of each other on the one shelf I have: and some forgotten tube of passata
invariably oozes out after a few days so that the entire refrigerator has to be
emptied and cleaned and the whole rigmarole of putting things back starts
again.
I am told my
apartment is large by London standards. Huge, in fact. But I had an Audrey
Hepburn moment when she, upon entering Gregory Peck’s modest studio in Roman Holiday, imperiously asks whether
they had entered the elevator. I was not quite as ignorant – I just walked into
our bedroom and exclaimed ‘Nice closet.’ When my husband told me that this was our
bedroom and that another closet needed to be fitted inside it, my mind
immediately started wondering how I’d fit all my stuff anywhere.
The real
luxury of my living situation, apparently, is that I have two bathrooms. But
they are not called that: here, we have wet rooms – boasting the singular
quality of not drying after a two minute shower. Why living in the land of
constant rain a wet room is a selling point for a property I’ll never know. But
they are compact and one can shampoo one’s hair and reach for the toothbrush
above the sink and flush the toilet without necessarily extending one’s reach.
Everything in Britain’s houses is an arm’s length away. Provided you have very
short arms.
So precious
a commodity is space that washing machines are provided without driers. One
would imagine that the dryer would occupy a sacred space in the British
household – garlanded and enshrined for being a shelter of warmth in a dank,
cold world. So I stare at wet socks and bras all day and by the time they dry,
I have a new load of dirty laundry to wash and put in its place. And there’s no
discreet balcony to air these items. You have a corridor and a small clothes’
stand – that’s all.
My body too
suffers under the very necessary squeeze of Western clothing. Summers here are
like the coldest Karachi days and layering is really the only way to keep
hypothermia at bay. So every day I put on underwear, thermals, clothes and then
a sweater. And this is if I’m indoors. To go out – I must put on a five tonne
puffer jacket, a woollen scarf that wraps itself around my nostrils like an
anaconda and a woollen cap to make sure my ear-drums don’t freeze. I venture
out like this – a moving pile of clothing that joins other mounds making their
way on footpaths-called-roads trying to squeeze into tooth-paste shaped trains
called Tubes, inhaling arm-pit fragrance and trying their best not to stare up
into other people’s nostrils.
It’s been a
squeeze, to say the least. But things are getting better. I no longer get stuck
behind the kitchen counter – nor suffer attacks of claustrophobia when I enter
my house – my brain has oriented itself to UK dimensions. I have shrunk and am
glad this cold, dark country has accommodated itself around homebody – who is
just beginning to wriggle around and make her way in it.
