By Farha Alam
Delhi is not just a balcony-friendly city, you know what I mean, still don’t be judgmental, because I treat it as mine.
Rickshaws.
Monsoons are here, and your sensory instruments are in for a treat. Delhi is my city of champions and lotteries, and the subsequent drop of unanswered matkas and chunnis.
The city means half hearted traffic, feverish deadlines, dholaks played by woman for their daily bread, dead flowers that provoke sympathy and last but not the least equating my colony to a city!
There is an avid burning, an impulse beating you to pound the flesh more and more. There is some certain sort of urgency about Delhi.
“Bhaiya, market tak jaana hai.” He was wearing Aldo-styled suede shoes, only that they were leather- black, tattered, and with a number of creases that matched the ones on his brown tanned bony legs.
I wish to be reincarnated as the favorite daughter of Shahjahan, so that I could have my own Chandni Chowk. The dogs and kids there, both cover their ears while trying to sleep during cold chilly nights, a sight that is more lip smacking and heavy to digest than the chaat around. Roads have their moods and seasons; stony here, sleek there. Defence Colony doesn’t have cows and people of Chandni Chowk celebrate her. Emergency exits are never used, huge dead trees are safely carried in a truck while passing a dead man on the street. Romance happens on orange construction pipes and under Radio Mirchi umbrellas. People act like sweeping refrigerators and spray paints and graffiti’s act as weapons. Cars and trucks seem to come alive in these streets. Numbers play big gigantic games, and you can learn German in hundred days! Is that why I’m always told that Delhi is a traveler’s city? It’s a puzzling, shiny, shiny city and someone from a small town will have his or her distrust dilating here, much like pupils that have been exposed to a flash of light. It’s such a pickle city and with the tongawallahs gone, rickshaws are even slower.
He wipes the sweat off his face and randomly nods. Dilliiwallas can hear you thinking, I’m telling ya.
The familiar heat of spices, Auntie Times reproduced affairs, fancy photographers, charitable voices, myth-like posters, ‘Don’t Pluck Trees’, adults speaking with sincerity, Delhi has such a drive! As a child and a young learner, I was introduced to Hindustani Classical Music and environmental- friendly dilli-esque stories about the mazaars, I had itr to greet my mind and mowgli to melt my heart. Delhi somehow makes me savor a seamless link between Michael Jackson and Lajpat Bandwallas. It’s a link similar to Jazz and Indian classical music. There’s this scorching drive, these colors that zoom right and left {not a camera-trick, I swear} and this memory, which is humid and porous, that forms up my well-laid memory of Delhi; the maximum city, the first city.
He’s smoking a beedi now, it’s cold. He stops to drink water from a tank at a mandir and politely asks if I want some.
This city when personified comes out as a writer-like guy who wistfully talks about his writings and then clearly makes you appreciate a connection. Janpath sells you more of stares and giggles than the pickled-old-shirt. Tansen marg has wonderfully glossy, purple colored jamuns and is home to fleas and robustly colored ‘Best price’ tags. Golchakkars are like metaphors, they are either shortcuts or a fiasco that add to the rush. Hazrat Badr-ud-din always smells of fresh green paint; cool enough to remind me of my ancient grandmother. A soundtrack comprising of the crunch of dried leaves, wind gathering up my hair, a tanpura near the red-light with ‘shani dev ka bhajan’ is what my mind plays when reminded of my muse. So much for musing. I have a longing for those 70′s looking rusted streetlamps who’s flickering lights are almost as crippled as my dying Bollywood hero. You know, the ones that used to be around ITO.
The rickshawallah is sweating. Must I call him that?
I often see a dead tree near New Friends Colony Market stripped naked, lying parallel to man, stripped naked… These old-world images have been untouched, unrepaired for a very long time now. Or is it that it’s ubiquitous in Delhi? This would be good cinema, I often think to myself… Thus Dev-D and CMYK. There are always two directions or none, still my loyalty runs deep. I have certain caricatures, mostly entertaining, and some that I have created out of love. Pathos, though. Adrak ki chai is almost killer and brews lovingly with the atmospheric-polluted-music. It tastes much better with the chaiwalla and his wife. Here diyas are more colorful than patakas. Hour-long performances, street or not, make my travel journeys. Well, a destination is not always what one wants, it’s the journey that counts, right? And Delhi, is that very ride.
He says, “ Madam, khuda har jagah hai,” and starts laughing to himself. This city is such a rush, still the loneliness. I wonder why.
A red thread named sacred by different species of God tied either to a jaali at a dargah, or a wrist. A dream inside a matka at MatkaPir or tied to a one-rupee coin dedicated to Shani devta. Dreamlike. The whiff, the air seems to be Gemini-ish you know; quiet-lush green-clean as opposed to the noisy-brown-mess. Strange and cinematic things happen here and I sense and see metaphors mostly in immobile things.
I pay him. He doesn’t have a wallet. A picture of his son, a handkerchief and a few coins that seem music to me. I looked back at the rickshawallah. He was gone. I take a bus now.
The new red buses here remind me of something out of science fiction. People sitting on both the sides stare into their respective windows even when the left hand side is a blank grey wall, and right has a child dressed up as Shiv, exhibiting a “naach for 5 rupees”. And Shoes. Shoes. Shoes here hold the character, essentially. I am in a hurry, though. Just as Dilli always is, no? With a hundred hair-raising experiences to be told, dilli- chinese to be relished, eyes to be over-worked like lenses, traffic lights to be crossed, street children to be fed and Delhi to be lived king-size. Delhi is such a man of character. I’m using my laptop to type this last line, in this very bus. It’s smooth, clean, hushed and has air-conditioning… And then I see why only some seats are occupied.
and please, mind the gap.
About the Author | Farha Alam won our ‘Celebrate Delhi with {LBBD}’ contest, and this is her winning entry.
