"There are really patterns. It was a revelation, of a kind. Dreams and sand and stories. Deserts and cities and time."
- Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Fables & Reflections #39: Soft Places, (1993)
After two years, Delhi still remains what it always has been, a dispassionate lover who is the best kept secret, but never a friend.
It’s not for the first time that I feel intrigued by my impersonal, bittersweet affair with Delhi. I have oftentimes imagined myself as its Mistress, treated with a cursory nod of acknowledgement in society, and with utmost benevolence in private, but never with acceptance.
It would be ungracious of me to not acknowledge its kindness; often I feel it eying me as a step child - making up for its lack of affection by showering upon me abundance in kind. I owe it the exceptional opportunities it has provided, a thriving career. In Delhi I graduated from being a Missy to becoming a Madam. But ask me (or ask it) if we ever became allies and we’d both nod our heads with a dismissive smile and proclaim “we’re just old acquaintances”.
Not to say that personal histories have not been created and buried in its folds: chance encounters, opportune romances, circumstantial friendships and unpredictable trysts with love. Like the boy who liked flying planes so much, that I failed in keeping him grounded to myself. And another, who excelled in bizarre boyish skills: fire poi and skateboarding; who made for excellent conversations over Sunday brunches and etched himself in my memory forever as the Sweet Blue Eyed Boy. The girl at my dance club who asked me to go dancing with her; who was the queen of Delhi's debaucherous nights, and yet who then settled to marry a man chosen by her parents with little resistance. That beautiful dancer whose amorous embrace consumed me in a dervish swirl every time he took my hands and led me to the floor, but whom I left waiting, without remorse. And the Man who taught me how to use chop sticks on the first date and made me fall in love with him, so hard, in spite of my intelligence, my clairvoyance and my awareness of its limitations, that it felt almost criminal. What is it that they say about a lot of water having gone under the bridge?
I never belonged to Delhi like I belonged to Hyderabad. Good ol’ Hyd - how I longed to run into its arms at the end of every week, riding red district buses meandering through desolate highways, to escape my far off college campus and to set foot in the streets of Hyd, where I was free. We were kindred, Hyd and I, each looking to belong, each trying to shed the old ways of towns and adopting the new ones of a city. Unlike Delhi, in Hyd my friendships were never listless, my loyalties never trivial and my love never conditional upon loss.
I never belonged to Delhi, like I belonged to Bombay; throwing myself at its mercy, which is the only way it allowed its patronage. Hopping on and off Mumbai’s gritty locals, I felt comfortable in my skin. In its salty rains I felt submerged in reality. Its rocky sea shore reflected the conflict within. Mumbai demands your resilience, but also delivers itself completely to you. Unlike Delhi, Mumbai is a life coach, not a sugar daddy; it pats your back and hands you a spade, it never pats your head and hands you a candy.
I never belonged to Delhi, like I belonged to Singapore. Walking down Orchard lane, on the Christmas eve, hand in hand with my 9 year old huckleberry friend - I felt appropriately festive. Drinking wine right out of the bottle at Clark Quay with my namesake, who I serendipitously happened upon at New Years’ Eve - I never bargained for a lasting friendship. Dancing with the beautiful Indian boy up close and personal to the tune of “Stand by Me” played by a local band - I knew the night to be a shifting moment, never expecting it to last forever. In Singapore's utopia, I was not once disappointed. Unlike Delhi, Singapore delivered what it promised, and exactly what I expected of it: to revel in its ephemeral glory.
For long, Delhi liked to see me in captivity, be it in His arms or a cubicle; it never set me free. A fleeting sense of belonging to Delhi once came upon me, as a packaged deal with belonging to Him. I bought a car and there was a time when I wanted to buy a house. I had assured Him and myself that I would make a home for us here. I may have been disillusioned that it never came to be, but I am, all the same, relieved. Belonging to a city in which you are not free may come easier, but it is impossible to love a city in which you are not free.
I plan my escape every day. Will it be this year or the next? How much should I save? Should I learn Tango at Buenos Aires or try Ayahuasca in Peru? Maybe I should start taking Spanish lessons already? Maybe I should learn to swim better so as not to be embarrassed in Fiji's blue lagoons? Will I ever be able to save enough for a Round the World Ticket? But then again maybe I could take the Trans-Siberian all the way from Beijing to Moscow, with whatever I am able to save? My mind, dear friends, designs its own adventures.
Maybe it is me, and not Delhi. Me and my peripatetic ways, my impulsive escapism. Maybe I have spent enough time in Delhi to thwart its attempts at camaraderie. Delhi remains, a soft place, a place in transit, a sojourn: a place where you don't buy new furniture and don't plant bonsais in your terrace. A place where some nights you enjoy engaging company and at others you light a cigar and listen to jazz till midnight. My friends are not Dilli-Wallas or Dilli-Wallis, they are exiles, expats, small town boys and girls starting out here from scratch, people trying to make a living, just like me, or people surfing one couch at a time, awaiting a revelation through their encounters, travellers, tourists even. There is distant family liberally scattered in and around Delhi, which I choose not to socialize with much. When I hear of someone claiming to belong to Delhi, I do not relate, but I understand. Delhi, history's burden bearer, the City of Djinns, that has embraced so many, from the Pandavas to the Mughals to the partition refugees, never became mine.
Maybe when I leave, I'll look back upon Delhi with the fondness of a lost lover, and finally belong to it, like one belongs to the nostalgia of days bygone.
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