The good from the bad

When Antonio landed in BombayLittle did he imagine that this trip to write his first novel was going to start like hell.

A lash of sweltering, humid heat greeted him as he searched for a taxi to his hotel. The smell of perfumes and burnt garbage mixed with the strident music spitting out from the stalls at the foot of the road.

After an irritating negotiation to price the run to Bombay, Antonio sat in the back, ready to take in the first views of India.

To his disappointment, the road was a sad spectacle of poor people in rags eating, bathing or sleeping on the asphalt.

“Are all these people homeless?” Antonio asked the taxi driver in his best English.

—Well… Let’s say that it’s comfortable for them to live there.

“What’s comfortable with that?”

—Many of these people work in businesses that are on the side of the road: shops, restaurants, workshops… They come from far away and find it more pleasant to sleep in the open air than inside the businesses, as is usual here.

That’s seeing the good side of things…

The taxi driver shook his head. left and right. Antonio did not understand why he said no, he had not yet discovered that this lateral movement means “yes” for the locals.

Upon arrival at the hotel, nothing responded to what I had seen on the web when making the reservation. The room was not exterior, but faced a filthy interior patio where cockroaches walked. Instead of air conditioning – he was informed that it was broken – he had to settle for a fan that only moved hot air.

Outraged, he went down to fight with the concierge, but found him sleeping behind the counter.

He went out to the Colaba Causeway, Bombay’s great commercial artery, with the idea of ​​eating something before trying to sleep. Browsing among the street stalls and small restaurants, she thought how different this was from what she had read in Kipling’s novels.

In the street there were elephants and scrawny cows, to be sure, but the romance of books was nowhere to be found.

Antonio sat on a terrace in front of the central train station, which sported an imposing Victorian style.

“I think this is the only pretty thing I’ve seen since I got here,” he said aloud.

What do we need nasty things for? To later appreciate the beautiful things

A dark-haired man with glasses The round women who were sitting next to him spoke to him in passable Spanish:

—Not only pretty things are good. We also need the others.

After learning that the man was a professor and had studied philosophy in Cuba, Antonio asked him:

“What do we need nasty things for?”

—First, to later appreciate the beautiful ones, since the human mind works by contrast. If you have not suffered the discomfort of sleeping on the floor, you will never understand what a comfortable bed means.

Antonio was embarrassed of being angry when he saw his hotel room, when there were millions of people sleeping in the street.

The equation is the following: the good makes us happy, and the bad teaches us

“But that’s not the only good thing about the bad,” the professor continued. The equation is as follows: the good that happens to us makes us happy, and the bad teaches us, unless we reject the lesson. In that case we become neurotic.

—I think I’m somewhat neurotic… And, well thought about, all the bad things I’ve experienced today gives me a good start to the novel –he admitted smiling–. Or, at least, for a story.