The Alleys Without Djinns

The earth has been wet, drenched. The sky - forlorn, grey, heavy with clouds. The raindrops are still fresh on the wires from last night’s rain. But these are all invisible from the box of the room I live in. But when you come out and stare at the remnants of the destruction left by the previous night’s rain I’m transported for a few moments, if not longer, to that window facing the lotus spread pond of mine on a rainy afternoon.

It is hard to think that more than a year have passed since I landed on the heartland, the capital, The City. This is definitely not the first rain I have witnessed here of course. I have braved its infamous winter, the unbearable summer and the mad monsoons. Time is an amalgamation of all the seasons as we see. The essence of the city (as one of my friends had remarked) - the spirit takes time to unfold. Likewise, for me the core of what Delhi is, is merely not the swanky malls, the concrete roads, the troublesome traffic, the famous somany sites (sounds), its high quotient life. Delhi for me, at this stage, is a collage of images, everyday images - an early morning glimpse of the India Gate in fog; the pigeons, the omnipresent pigeons, behaving like your guides throughout the city; the labourers with their shiny black backs labouring on the sweltering streets in midday, the view from the terrace of unending blocks of tall buildings, the laughter shared by a bunch of friends in an obscure small Chinese restaurant (whose waitresses have also traversed a long way from home), the momo corners around the market place, the gypsies habiting in the middle of the city. The subtlety has been minimal, almost unseen. The prejudices I had against the city (not that I was loaded with them) kind of got lost by the time I was actually seeped in by a part of it, as a curious observer. The music of the place have not formed a symphony nor do I expect it to be build up into one so fast but the amaltas of the last season, the unexpected quite moments shared in the heartland makes for some unforgettable starts to probing of the city with alleys without Djinns, real, throbbing with life, with variety and variants. Simple activities become enlarged. Introspection gets time even in this otherwise fast life.

That is the most amazing thing about the city, its full of strangers, full of outsiders, most of the people you see do not actually belong to the city - The students, the labourers, the gypsies, the job seekers, the transferred ones, the drifters, everyone. But how we become a part, an unmissable part, to create the whole the city is. I have been lonely but at times only when I chosen to be. Finding myself in the newest surrounding, which will slowly cease to be new, I wonder, I don’t reminisce. The time spent has been fast, keeping up to the fast paced life. Delhi is not a mirage and it’s a relief or perhaps. The discovery reaches the next phase and I can’t be more prepared to take on the role of the explorer.

P.S: Was written a month back, during the Mad monsoons