Unsevered

“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.