The Scottish immigrant and her local every day

Last year (2021) towards the end of June the rain began to come down in torrents. That often happens here in summer. Then in the omnipresent damp one can hear the rustle of the grasses growing, the unruly ivy climbing up the outside wall of our living room, and the mushroom spores expanding in the backyard, reminding me of rural India. After the rain, when the sun broke through the clouds for a while, everything took on such depth that my heart was filled in with happiness. I communicated my mixed feelings to my partner. He devastated my happiness by briefing me about his study that common people were sitting upon heavy debts.

“Tins from the food bank
In a Union Jack bag
Instant mashed potato
If you can’t afford gas
Nothing that’s fresh
It would go off
While I clap for my betters
And try not to cough” (Captain Hotknives)

I can’t go out nowadays. Since lockdown in 2020 the home has grown upon me though I sadly feel the absence of my social life in Edinburgh city centre and the Film-house Cafe. I am almost stuck in our house and our village Ratho in the rural west of Edinburgh. I visit the local café for regular chats over Scottish breakfast with my local friends, the village shop for milk and potatoes, and the local pharmacy for our blood pressure pills. The canal is just above our head. During sunset it turns gorgeous with its reflected glory on the colourful boats and swans on the canal stream. The Bridge Inn closed. I miss the local scallops. A bit of compensation arrives in the guise of the fishmongers John and Peter. They bring us fresh salmon, prawns, scallops, fishcakes, and our favourite baked goodies. When the US president visited Scotland during Cop-26 our village was a bit shaken up because of heavy surveillance. It has now recovered and become cool again.

I was feeling gloomy and sad when no one could visit us. Suddenly a magic spell came in the name of the Citizen’s Project, an intense Communities Programme. Writing transformed into a process of passion and spree. We, the local authors started to receive the chance and opportunity to interact with other writers and creative people. Our Communities Writer in Residence, E, constantly inspired, prompted, and nurtured us to produce our fantastic essays on a theme of Edinburgh architectures and their environments. They became our story characters. Last year I wrote on an old church where a stray fox took temporary refuge for food. The entire project was showcased in the November 2021 Edinburgh International Book Festival. Oh, what a grand affair it was! We proudly read our stories along with powerful paintings reflecting the mood and the narratives in our individual stories.

This year (2022) our writing project will track a dream tube map adopted from the tube stations based in London. Our project outcome, ‘Our Day Ticket’, a play, will be featured in this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival (2022). The cast will perform with scripts in hand.

Today we attend the gala book festival launch party. It is a wet, jasmine-soaked June evening. Warm rain hasn’t stopped falling and the sky in consequence is suffering still. Sometimes it looks as if it is about to stop, however, it simply continues to pour. I remember evenings like this one from my past life in Calcutta when my son was born. He came with thunder, lightning, and a semi-flood. I feel nostalgic among the huge audience who are drinking their prosecco and fruit juices. We are anxious and eagerly waiting for the book-festival to be launched. The programmes as listed by the festival architects are massive, collaborative, innovative, and imaginative. I am now confused as to what to watch and listen to from the long list.

After the launch we all go to the hall to have some delicious nibbles. Sometimes the dead, from the past two years, appeared and reappeared. Met my friends, shared and exchanged news about who has caught the virus and who hasn’t.

A chill suddenly sails in through the open window of the car, making me shiver. The image of the romantic thrillers changing into green moss refuse to vanish from my sight. I blink. While driving the car back from the launch venue, my partner asked: “It is strange you are so silent, are you okay?” I said, “I am still in a trance. It is a nice dream that we could meet after two years.” I also added that the authors are cordial, very normal, and down to earth. They are all interesting, full of energy and vitality. They can talk about the forests and the hills that they have crossed during lockdown. They narrate how their garden plants have been damaged due to a nocturnal storm and a sudden flood.

Thanks perhaps to climate changes the authors write about how the animals during the pandemic have become aggressive, even deer and rabbits. In our imagination we saw braver mammals roaming around the streets. One of my coauthors sounded as if he is living in another universe, in a spirit world in the north of Scotland, maybe in the Shetlands, where the trees are thousands of years old, and large. Animals move among them at a slowed-down pace, outside time. I calmly watch as the image of penguin community in Edinburgh Zoo fade away and almost evaporate. Our mentor E knows this from the start and has accommodated all of us with a faint smile on her lips.