Month: August 2020

When you stand at almost the southernmost tip of a vast continent that straddles the planet’s two hemispheres, what do you really think? It is a moment rife with unparalleled elation and stupendous wonder, of course, as you stand at the edge of land. An unending expanse of water lies in front of you, stretching far beyond your eye can behold. Of course you know you will meet land somewhere if you plunged down into it, and managed to stay afloat and alive, but disbelief steps in for that moment when you think that the vastness is endless. It is a place where oceans meet. You are speechless, muted by the sheer magnificence and magical miracle of the moment.

And how different is the confluence of the oceans from that of the rivers you have seen before! You cannot really distinguish the breaking waves of the different waters that beat against the cliffed coastline. Yet, it is the place where the waters of two ocean currents meet, whispering without sound, and mingling even as they turn away from each other. Was the southernmost tip of the African peninsula shaped and held in their hands over millions of years by their sheer unmitigated force? Or has the massive land mass kept them in abeyance, holding them on either side as a giant might hold opposing forces that seek to destroy it.

You suddenly want to share the elation, transfixed as you are in that momentous moment. But you also want to keep it just to yourself, to savour it long after it has disappeared. It is just so so special! Deep down it occurs to you, that you are lucky. You are the chosen one. It wasn’t something you had ever thought you would know or do. And least in the way it happened. But life is full of surprises, isn’t it? Cocooned in your own world, you had been busy with the ordinariness of life, content in the maneuverings of each passing day and night. Yet, when it did happen, the feeling surpassed all expectations.

Then, when you step out of that moment, you think, this is it! Nothing can be better. You have been there, done that. Never mind that you hadn’t planned for it, hadn’t expected it. It did happen, nonetheless. The mundaneness of the world around you once again grabs you by your feet, and plants you firmly on the ground, and you get busier than ever with this thing called life. You carry on living, forgetting that life can be magical beyond its humdrum madness.

Then, several years later, you are again in the midst of another miraculous moment, at another point in another place. This time you are in the ocean, venturing out even further than you did the last time. In a southernmost fjordland, among broken pieces of an ancient landmass that seems to have been born of the bowels of the earth, the magic comes to you again. This time, it is even more exhilarating. The previous experience becomes all too real once again, and grows manifold, merging with the joyfulness of the present moment. This time you think you already know it. Yet, when you actually meet the actual moment, it surpasses your expectations. It once again lifts you beyond the veils of imagination and carries you beyond time. It is a world unknown, but not fearful, and the strangeness is delicious. You soak in it, devour it, licking your lips and savouring the taste long after it becomes a distant dream again.   

Years later, yet again at another point in another place, you feel on top of the world. This time the farthest you can go is in the opposite direction, as close to the Arctic Circle as you can get at the start of summer, just falling short of it because you hadn’t planned for it yet again! Life’s unexpected pleasures come, well, unexpectedly! And you feel blessed. An overbearing sense of immanence engulfs you and you soak in the joy and live the dream. The moment is all there is. You leave behind everything else and just be there, all of yourself, there, and only there.

“To live in a city is to live the life that it was built for, to adapt to its schedule and rhythms, to move within the transit layout made for you during the morning and evening rush, winding through the crowds of fellow commuters. To live in a city is to consume its offerings. To eat at its restaurants. To drink at its bars. To shop at its stores. To pay its sales taxes. To give a dollar to its homeless. To live in a city is to take part in and to propagate its impossible systems. To wake up. To go to work in the morning. It is also to take pleasure in those systems because, otherwise, who could repeat the same routines, year in, year out?”

These words from Severance by Ling Ma may ring somewhat true for some of the modern ‘planned’ cities that are designed to consume people. After all, what else are they built for? But they cannot be applied to everyone and everything in every place and every time! Growing up in Delhi, I might never have thought much of them, leave alone subscribed to them. But then, these words didn’t exist then! They are a mere juxtaposition on an age when life and the city I was born in was not what it is now. But then I was young too. And just growing up, gathering the tidbits of life amidst everything around me. At that time, I did not think of Delhi as I do now, having lived in it and away from it over the years.  

Delhi, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, was as different as it would have been at any other point in time, even as it is today for that matter, almost at the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century! And yet, it can never be anything else, except itself. It has existed for centuries. The certainty of that fact not only makes it immortal, but also invincible and invulnerable. It stands solid on its own, unalterable and unaffected by the comings and goings of the millions, nay trillions, who have passed by. They have merely been a part of the inexorable rhythms that pulsate the city, its bosom heaving with eternal lifegiving breath.

Whether I live in accordance with its patterns and rhythms or not was and continues to be irrelevant. As an individual I take from it only what I desire, what I need, and what I find worthwhile. The rest remains for others to take. But I am not selfish. I am just myself. It was, and still is, home. And it has made me what I am. Just like itself. An amalgam. A cross-cultural cauldron of historicity, of beliefs, of faiths, of ethnicities, of imagination, of dreams, of ambiguity and individuality. Just like it, I cannot be anything but myself.

The city is so unlike any other that even the passage of time cannot alter it. It lives, breathes, grows on its own, shaped by everything that happens in it and to it, a quintessential sponge that absorbs it all. Its modern façade merely a superficial makeover. Every now and then it is layered with something new. Yet, the heart of the city remains intact. Its character inherent in its people, its language, its food, its mannerisms and everything else that constitutes it. All that it has imbibed from the civilizations and cultures that have traversed through it over centuries.

Whenever I move away, it continues to live in me. And like a magnet, pulls me back. I may extraneously adapt to and adopt the rhythms of every other city I live in, or visit, but within, deep down, I remain where I was born, one with the eternal city. Nothing alters that because it is unalterable. Its centuries old life has seeped into me, just like it has permeated everything else in the city itself.

What makes Delhi what it is? The credit for it cannot merely go to the city it is today. Its life is in its location in time, in its history, its soil, its character, its culture, its soul, and the fact that it defies design, patterns and systems. Delhi is not to be found in its monuments or museums or memorabilia. It is visible in every timeless particle that floats in its air, that has dissolved in its soil and become one with everything in it.