When people ask me, “Born and brought up here?”, I have to pause to think how to answer them best. I’ve settled for the bombastic and somewhat pretentious sounding “Born in the Capital and grew up in Island City.”
Its an odd feeling to belong to two different places simultaneously like this. Just like our relationships with people, there are invisible bonds that link us to places too…places that contain strong memories, places we’ve experienced life most in..
Each visit to the capital brings up parallel voices inside of me, conflicting, contradicting and highlighting the differences in the two places. If a city could be the motherland, I’m the proverbial Krishna, originating from one and flowering in another.
Mumbai has left an undeniable ‘chappa’ on me, shaped my thinking and attitudes. Visiting Delhi however invokes odd feelings that I’ve never quite been able to explain. I suppose it is a symbolic return to the womb, a reminder of how life could have been, still could be. Having a birth certificate from a city links you to that place for life. Mumbai is in my every waking moment and movement, in my brisk ‘lets-get-down-to-it’ attitude, my indifference to crowds and noise and precision-honed efficiency. Delhi however, whispers its hidden influences in my intellectualising, my love of the good life and long conversations.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Its cold. But not coooooooooooooold. That’s the first thought that hits me as I alight at Nizamuddin. What’s the fuss I think, remembering the dire warnings I’ve received over the past week about the winter in Delhi. Sure, everyone looks plumper (and that’s saying something….the average figure pays testimony to well-fed stomachs) and brighter draped in woolens and feathers (And I always thought these were the grey things that pigeons shed!).
As the day progresses, I can’t help reflecting that in Mumbai food takes longer to cool than to heat up. And oh…what an odd feeling to keep feeling hungry every hour! Mom is delighted and hints that my weight-gain plan might succeed if I shift here.
Shopping is always a great experience in Delhi, even for shop-a-phobics like me. I love the colour, the sheer feel of the ‘arty’ look, kurtas, jholas, mojris and trinkets. Idly I muse that I’ve never seen Delhi-ites wear all of this, though its considered the ‘Delhi look’. And oddly enough I’ve only seen all of this stuff on Mumbaikers who proudly say “Picked it up on my last visit to Delhi”…ah, umm.
The people look different, even their skin ailments look different. Can’t see any of the familiar pimples and acne that adorn Mumbai faces. There are instead, red splotches and little bumps which I assume must be a combination of colder weather and skins endowed with far less melanin.
Every single person I arrange to meet offers to pick me up or drop me back or both. Hmm…I think…I can’t imagine my Mumbaiker friends doing that any more than I can imagine my permitting them to. As always I hate not being able to travel around freely but I take note of the gentle solicitousness it seems to invoke in people here.
Books, books, BOOOOOKS!!!!! I’ll never be able to hate Delhi so long as it has its books. Mumbai’s workaholism drowns out any possibility of culture appreciation.
What is this life, if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare?
If Mumbai is the place to make money, Delhi’s the place to spend it.
I also saw a band playing in one of the corners of Connaught Place. Intrigued I stood and listened to the music belting out of the makeshift speakers. How wonderful….the drummer’s a girl! Can’t imagine amateur musicians making music at street corners like this. Come to think of it, where would they play….Churchgate station?
I gape, all open-mouthed wonder at the neat manicured lawns, shining signboards and broad roads all through our jaunts. I make snide comments about how Mumbai pays at least 1/3rd of the country’s taxes and gets so few benefits in return while the Delhi lives off the rest of the country’s earnings in splendour. I remind my co-passengers of the meaning of the word ‘parasite’ and get muttered threats for reply.
No trip to Delhi is complete without the mandatory visit to the chaat-wala. Yum, yum I drool as I watch potatoes and unidentified stuff being mauled in as unhygenic conditions as possible. Oh, to hell with hygeiene I tell that nagging voice and tuck into the ‘halka masala mixed fruit chaat’. My mouth was on fire for an hour afterward. Grr…Delhi-ites must have cast-iron cauldrons for stomachs.
Somewhere in the back of my consciousness floats pictures of homeless people…victims of the tsunami. I wonder, if a natural disaster had struck up north, would Delhi have been so complacent and matter-of-fact? Out of sight, out of mind is a phrase that springs to mind.
Not that there aren’t conversations. Politics, politics….does every single Delhiite from age 7 upward own a degree in Political Science??? I feel woefully ignorant in all this chatter. That’s until someone mentions a movie and the talk turns to Bollywood. Then I inform them that I’ve stayed within a kilometer from the Big B’s residence and that Vivek Oberoi was my senior in college. HAH! I love the grudging admiration that shines in their eyes as I throw out these facts with an air of disdainful nonchalance.
Saturday and its time to leave. As the capital gears up for a weekend (what’s a weekend to a city that seems to be either lazing or partying during the week?), I pack my bags. On my train I’m glad that the other family in the cubicle is from Mumbai and I won’t have to endure tales of “Dilli sabse number one city”. I take an almost devilish delight in graphic details of Mumbai trains to a group of youngsters on their first trip to Mumbai. I see one gulp and I smirk. As the train whizzes into Borivili…I sigh..home sweet home. Its odd but nothing reminds me more about how much I belong here than a visit to Delhi.
- Delhi ‘n’ Mumbai (ispeakab.wordpress.com)
Like this:
Like Loading...
Ideamarked Oct2011: Public Transport, Blogger Events & Watching What You Say
October 31, 2011 1 Comment
October has been a better month than the couple of months preceding it. For one, the rains have finally stopped!! Even if they did give way to scorching, melting, burning sunshine, for me, that means the shorts, summer dresses & flip-flops can finally replace easy-dry clothes & plastic footwear!
I’ve been traveling a bit, first to Bangalore and then to Bordi (posts coming up, of course!). There’s also been a fair bit of socializing with two back-to-back blogger meets by Indiblogger – the first, a blogger preview of MasterChef India2 (photos) and the second, the launch of Dove’s Damage Therapy range via a mini-spa for bloggers. Both were delightful, fun and had some great giveaways (now come on, bloggers are human too – we like freebies just like everybody else!).
Image via Wikipedia
One of the highlights (lowlights?) of the month was when Cadbury’s-Sula asked me to host a Dark Duet Party and botched it up, then topped it with a bad rescue attempt. Incidentally another friend reported another fiasco at her Dark Duet Party, the following weekend.
And finally, Marvin’s World back! After a bit of acting up, my Android has been taken care of with a SD card format and is app-browsing again! Onto some link-love:
Image via Wikipedia
Apple founder, Steve Jobs passed away a few hours ago. The products he pioneered have touched many of our lives in different ways, whether it was the iPod that was the first thing you saved up for & bought with your own money or, like me, if you were lucky enough to have a Mac for your first computer. Fans, detractors aside, here’s what stays with me – Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address. (via Youtube)
Image via Wikipedia
If you ever wondered about the correct way to say ‘bruschetta’ or ‘panini’, here’s an easy guide: ‘How To Order At An Italian Restaurant Without Sounding Dumb (Or Pretentious)‘ (via HowAboutWe.com).
Image via Wikipedia
Schedules and timely updates on the Mumbai train lines (via MumbaiLocalTrains, spotted at the Indiblogger-Dove meet).
* Catch these links as they happen on The Idea-smithy Facebook Page. You can also post an interesting link of your own to the page and get featured on the Ideamarked post at the end of the month!
Related articles
Pass the idea on:
Like this:
Filed under Blogging, Food, Ideamarked, Internet, Pop Culture, Roving I, Social Commentary, Social Networks, Television, Things that make me GRR!, Voicebox Tagged with Annie Zaidi, Apple, Bangalore, Blogger meets, Bordi, Bruschetta, Cadbury plc, Dark Duet party, Dial-in autorickshaw, Dove Damage Therapy, Dr.Sanjita Bhargavi, Foxymoron, Gautam Ghosh, Good Indian Girl, Howaboutwe.com, Indiblogger, Italian food, Italian restaurant, MasterChef India 2, Mumbai trains, Panini, Public transport, Reface.me, Rickshawale, Rickshawale.com, Sharin Bhatti, Smriti Ravindra, Social Network, Social Networking, Stanford Commencement Speech, Steve Jobs, TWSS, Youtube