six: den city

Walk down marketplace and try and hold breath. Way too many sharing what is surely in limited supply. Forget leaping, look before you step. Everything, everything, including allotted pavement space is an impossible fraction. Jostled, jousted, jimmied till blue - oh, jocund company all right. How to but be gay?

If there was any thing to take from this city, any one thing, it would be remembering - heart willing and  god, of course - Never is there no more room. Dilwalon ki Dilli, after all. =)

five: city as old blanket

Something comforting about this town. The way everyone's Aunty and Uncle again. The way you're Beta, nevermind how old, Beta.

Something snug in the way you can wake up every morning and it's the same Punjabi lady sitting in the middle of the street daring anyone to pick up their vegetables anywhere else, I'd like to see them try. How everything seems to revolve around the monsoon. Will it, will it never stop, won't it today, not again, haai raam.

Something familiar, even in the never been part of town. Skulk only to be spotted by friendly fruit vendor aka secret keeper of cats. Stop wherever, conversation flows free.

Smacks of old, know-it-all, cynical glee, this city of friendly ghosts. Look around every now and then and quickly check for threats. No, no, still one of us. If I thought I knew it, this ripe monkey town's returning me the favour.

four: kabutar city

Relic of the kings, these, one likes to smile and convince oneself. Rendered prosaic, repulsive now - what with the pungency of droppings, clumps of feathers, general grey tinge that has come to be of all cities, that make it hard to separate bird from backdrop - even, even now these flocks still heart.

Nowhere else of late have eyes seen such huge crowds of these creatures with the green necks and white hearts. These birds that seem to not tire of each other, not tire of breaking into sudden flight with a sound that hushes even midst the wildest of traffic.

Glance at phone in hand and try and imagine that these were what once - Impossible. =)

three: city of old new lingo

Return to primer. Gender wars again. This time around coffee, books, auto route home. Bada Wala Coke ya Badi Wali? Whichever you assume to be it, it is not. I vote for the neuter. Napunsak, haan wahi wala.

Reactions range from hostile to bored. Teenage store clerks smirk. Bemused old ladies wonder if they've gone harder of hearing. Kindly autowallahs nod and make conversation unnecessary.

Kuchh bi ho, lage raho.

two: city televised

Dilli as Breaking News. Not avoidable off screen either, as it turns out.

Three thrillingly loud shots, ambulance sirens, dubious smoke and one hastily imagined last testament and will later, one discovers what was passing of as NDE, is merely a drill. New Citizen #1 waving from buggy on the news channel, and thought fleets: Hey, same weather as hanging overhead, man. Powercut that keeps one awake through night is turned surprisingly painless the next morning, knowing the entire capital's out cold.

Dilli not of Meri Jaan fame. Dilli of hard, sunbaked concrete. Dilli of flared nostril; of simmering, subcutaneous power. Dilli of Gaurment. Haanji, yahaan, har koi koi hai. =)

one: city as landscape

Dilli as background overwhelms. Walking down nervecentre Barakhamba Road, there's something about these looming, halfdone houses that silence and still the fluttering heart. To raise chin and wonder why they've been abandoned. To stare at the sudden flight of pigeons against a grim sky. To catch reflection and marvel at how slickly, how quickly we've fit.