Brick Lane

I’m not from this part of town. I’m not even from this very city. I’m a tourist. I’m an intruder, and it’s tattooed on my forehead. I’m a tall, blond, blue-eyed Norwegian in an Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi area. I’m in exotic Brick Lane. Yeah, right!

There’s nothing exotic about Brick Lane. On the contrary, Brick Lane on a Sunday in late August 2009 is a hang-out for the middle-class children and grand-children of 1968. It’s a London symbol of western cultural relativism and liberal colonial guilt. The entire street from one end to the other is filled with white Bob Marley-loving hippies and cappuccino-drinking slim-jeans & hat urban hipsters selling each other books on spiritual enlightenment, the “for Dummies” version, and African wannebe artefacts. And I fit right in.

I jot these lines down while sitting at a café called “Verge” and drinking herbal tea. In my bag is a copy of St. Augustine’s Confessions. Just after I’ve sat down and put my block on the table and started writing an old man, probably remembering when this place was still exotic for anyone looking like me, walks by and exerts “Ah, inspiration!” as his eyes fall upon my activity.

Obviously English is the most common tongue I’ve hear around here, but Hindi is not number two. The language I’ve heard second most often is French. And it’s not Maghreb French, nor is it the French of the banlieus. No, it’s proper French. It’s the French you teachers whish they commanded. It’s the French of Jean Sarkozy when he lunches with his mother-in-law.

The guys walking by are fit and slim. They wear loose and light summer clothes, sport Beatles anno 1964-long hair, smart hats and Ray-Ban Wayfarer sun glasses. They’re my age and a little older, a little younger. Some just got their A-levels and are heading for university, others graduated years ago and are already in comfortable jobs. The common denominator is that they’re all educated, successful and on top of their lives.

I'm in Brick Lane and there's nothing exotic about it.