Take a trip to Mayfair

You’ve got to love Mayfair. Sun, Moon and Star, all take on each other in a fiercely contested male-coiffure trade. Mogadishu is no longer just a city in Somalia, it’s earned infamy as a street, or two, or three, in Mayfair. Hanover is not only a town in northern Germany, it’s also a street in Mayfair. A bakery too… Certainly not the Mayfair of Blighty, this is Mayfair the unfair. All visits are strictly by disinvitation only. When all the world forsakes you, the wily oak trees of Mayfair will embrace you. But oh do be careful, our scrap metal traders have taken to trading in drain covers, so the streets are uniformly sporting perfect, square gaps. Only fitting then, that standing between the cheese diary and the fruit juice shop, like a referee in a heavyweight bout is “Dr.” Moosa. Careful not to tread in either juice or cheese country, he plies his trade in bringing back lost lovers, rescuing your business, forecasting your future and generally curing all ills, or something like that. I was rather taken aback to have come to the door of such a place while innocently fetching a pound of mozzarella for Mum. In my mind, such institutions exist in backwater hovels, dark and eerie like, with the remnants of a forgotten man littering the floor. Yet, there was Dr. Moosa, proudly displaying his many, amenable services. I regret that in my awe, I didn’t pay as much attention to all of the good doctor’s services. I’m certain I’ve left out a few.

The vast expanse of the unseen and unknown is the well-traded I wanna know. And it’s not relegated to a visit to Dr. Moosa. Take most facebook quizzes and superwall posts, most of them hold a promise of foretelling the future or providing an insightful rejoinder into who you really are. Take Cousin Flighty’s facebook mini-feed for example, ‘What’s your Ideal marriage proposal?’, ‘Do boys tend to consider you a girlfriend or just a friend?’ , ‘The Best Romantic Place for you’, ‘When will you get married?’, ‘What will you be in your future life?’, ‘ What kind of guy will you fall for?’, ‘Which Bollywood actress are you?’ Or forward this and the name of the person who has a crush on you will magically appear on your screen. Thus, ‘post removed due to false claims on forward’.

We place such value on the potential for humanity to transcend its limitations that we happily visit far-flung lands, with monotonous regularity, to pay our respects to a man, an exceptionally spiritual man, perhaps, but ultimately, a man, just as you and I, who too must raise his hands to a higher Deity to ask. We clock up the frequent-flyer miles, seeking out the man who ‘has a direct link to God’, who has a cure for illness in his touch, or whose supplications are always accepted, yet the best of all mankind, the most beloved of the Creator remains unvisited for years. Yet it is in visiting him, the best of all creation (Peace be upon him), that we are assured an intercession on Judgement Day. Simplicity is underrated, there is power in humanity.

It’s back to the fromagerie for me. Parmesan this time.