Global Muse

The Metro 47 different Khimar 1 sun hat 1 pair sunglasses 1 banana clip The girls' club. All in Hijab. Yellow and Indigo and Blue and Purple and Violet and Green and Pink and Aqua. Brown and black and white and lavender and turquoise and olive. It's packed. Door-to-door-and-side-to-side Babies, girls, women, ladies. The ladies' car. Beautiful eyes everywhere - each telling a different story. Uninhibited laughter. A baby eating bread from her mother's hands. An IPod - in bubble wrap? Fierce competition to get into the Ladies' car elbows out and hips ready to bump. If you don't get in immediately, the train will leave you But you won't get left behind again.

I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighbourhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the stree ts. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow For the first time since I was in India, I just heard sirens from my abode. This is a wonderful, homey sound – the sound of sirens rushing down the road amid the honking and yelling and barking. I can hear it all - a heady mix of city and life and living – right from the street below to my balcony and into my hotel room at the Conrad Cairo. I need not even turn on the television for background noise since I have this symphony of spontaneous song serendipitously floating into my space. In fact, today I even turned down the volume on the television so I could enjoy the din of the city below me. I have the window open to air out the stale smoke smell of my room on the “Non-smoking” floor of the hotel. The curtains billow, flirtatiously – as if to say “catch me if you can” with their come-hither gauze. I find it a bit ironic, a...