To Delhi, With Love

By the end of this day I will have left this city for good. Delhi, where I lived for the past two years and some more. I wish  I could define my relationship with this place, express in a few lines what this place has been for me but I can’t. It’s a complicated relationship of some sorts. There have been times when I have hated Delhi to extremes. And then in other times I have had nothing but infinite gratitude to this place for what it’s done to me. Delhi was my ‘shock absorber’ when I first landed here.

My nails were painted red and the first thing I did after I got off from the auto was go looking for a nail polish remover. I just couldn’t stand the sight of the nail paint. In the past few weeks I have painted my nails from green to blue, yellow, orange, grey, brown just any color I got hold of. You wouldn’t get it, after all what’s in a stupid nail paint but it signifies so much for me. When I think of the disgust, yah it was literally ‘disgust’ that I had for that red thing on my nails I realize I am so different now.

Delhi is a ****** place if I come to think of it. But then I realize that it’s not the place it is the people. It is a city with wide roads and narrow-minds. However my sample size to reach such a conclusion is small. I hope I am wrong, or will be proven wrong someday but for now my love is only for the place not people.

 

Sometime back I was walking from CP to Shivaji Stadium Metro station and thinking what Delhi means to me. To start with once you cross the Hanuman Mandir crowd it is a really nice place to walk. The weather was good too, it even started drizzling then it dawned on me that Delhi’s like a pleasant walk in the drizzle for me. The freedom of walking in the drizzle with no care in the world. Life in Delhi has been a good mixture of freedom, responsibility and pain. It is wonderful to be in a city where your life is your own. There is no one to ask where you are, what you are up to, no questions to answer to, no nothing at all. Just you and your studies. Your own pursuit and priorities in life. I know it sounds selfish but what can I do I can’t fake to be someone else.

When I think of my life in Kathmandu it feels like everyone’s filled with questions regarding my existence everytime they see me like where I stay, what I do or why I don’t do this and that, why I haven’t changed or when will I be different. It’s like an entire world waiting out there waiting for me to cure me of myself! It sounds strange but that is exactly what people make me feel in Kathmandu. Not that anyone in Delhi makes me feel better but no questions is better than too many of them. And even when nothing is said I can sense a big question mark in the room when I am with anyone. It makes Delhi, even it’s unbearable heat something I could stand! Now this has turned into a KTM DEL comparison which wasn’t my intention. I think I got swayed by emotions despite people around me asking me questions like ‘Why are you sad? What are you missing? Sarojininagar market? India Gate? Rastrapati Bhawan? India Gate? ” Yes, more questions.

But may be that’s exactly what I’ll miss. From a person who hated shopping I’ve gone absolutely nuts shopping in Sarojininagar. That simple act of buying things for myself has also taught me so much when I come to think of it. Delhi helped me grow up. I think I need to thank it for making an adult. I think everyone should leave their place of origin and experience living in a place where they can relate to nothing. Though Delhi won’t be that place for Nepalis it still is very different to life in any city in Nepal. My life in Kathmandu was too easy. I didn’t come to Ktm from the village to study or work. Being born and raised in the city meant I didn’t have to struggle like the rest for little things in life. I can’t say that for Delhi too, given the fact that I lived in a some star hotel for the last 8 months and another good hostel before that still there were many struggles. I’ve been to the doctor’s alone with a 103 F fever, been alone without a friend and eaten alone every single day in the college canteen for months, got extremely depressed and then healed by meditation. Only after a year did my fun student life begin when we partied inspite of being in extreme academic pressures, drank all kinds of alchoholic beverages, written term papers and assignments, dissertation going sleepless for days.

Delhi basically taught me to live. For two years it cushioned me from my own reality which perhaps I wasn’t ready for and has helped me emerge a stronger and sensible (hopefully) person. It showed me the worst of people and also the best. It just let me be. And that I think it is the biggest favor anyone could do to me. Just let me be and learn life’s lessons my way. Explore and experience life the hard way. No directions required, no unsolicited advice to be heeded….

So I’ll miss Delhi, this place. So this one’s for that life in Delhi I led. For good and the bad times which helped me find myself, be myself. The wall clocks that were broken, the drives and walks guided by google maps, morning badminton hours, the noisy peacocks outside my window, the afternoon chai with Bameesha & Poushali, the solitory meals which made me feel that eating was like a boring job, those trees which at a time I’d thought  I would hang myself, to those extremely depressing times, to good times, to Old Monk, Bacardi Breezer, Antiquity Blue and Magic Moments!, to those Dominos Pizza coupons in which we never got the discounts mentioned, to the realization that alchohol doesn’t solve problems but neither does milk, to inflation and unemployment, to Veblen and the Institutionalists, to Marx and Friedman, to the endless debate on poverty line, to Poggue and Reddy and C. Jones and Oded J. Stark. To research on migration which drove me crazy and to Devil’s Own in CCD.Chanakyapuri. And thanks to room no 529 for the past few days which seemed like weeks due to the heat. To that beautiful view of the metro running in the horizon and windy nights in the verandah. And finally to the 34.5 km bus rides each day to and fro from Centaur to Chanakyapuri for the last one year. It was a wonderful ride. And like Delhi distance life feels good right now, no place is too far in Delhi. It’s just a few kilometers where one will eventually reach. Life feels that way too. I’ll get to the place where I should, eventually………

Lots of love to Delhi. New Delhi, Old Delhi, South Delhi, Rohini Paschim and to Jangpura, Ber Sarai, Old JNU campus, Centaur Hotel and Akbar Bhawan. It was a life well lived. …will definitely miss you.

From,

One of the millions you gave space to grow.

Ficus elastica

‘You write?’ I asked opening my laptop.

She turned her head to my direction from her bed on the opposite side of the room and replied ‘Yes.’

‘Where?’ I was curious.

‘Somewhere you don’t look for.’ She seemed uninterested.

But I had to know.

‘On the internet?’ I continued.

‘Why does it matter?’

‘Everything does for curious souls’ I replied tapping away on my keyboard.

The next few minutes passed in silence.

mindless musings

A week ago I had a sudden surge of development optimism. It happened amidst our class discussions on what is wrong with poverty lines and micro credit. My argument was if the credit market doesn’t exist for people below poverty lines anyway what is wrong with MC creating it? At least some people are benefiting from it aren’t they? I surprised myself by even thinking along those lines. It’s been long since I lost faith in development as is practiced I felt as though I were was going back to the old days of development optimism, the innocent ‘I’ll change the world’ attitude. Yah, it seems so innocent when I think of those early enthusiastic dev days. Now it seems like it was only a fleeting thought.

scribble scribble

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Ceteris Paribus

One of the most often used terms in economics is Ceteris Paribus (everything else remaining the same/holding everything else constant/ everything else remaining equal). I have a fascination for this concept. Just imagine how things would be if everything else could be kept constant and we could deal with each of our problems in isolation. It is definitely difficult to experience ceteris paribus . Nonetheless, it helps us understand certain things. The notion however is best limited to the short phase when we are taking baby steps in understanding theories. It has no place outside of it.

Nightcall

Shouldn’t writing be liberating? Or relaxing ? Why write if it won’t help me unwind like the TV does when I turn it on right after entering my room? The programme on the TV doesn’t matter. The options are limited anyways: Enter 10, दगल, B4U Music, Shakti, News X and some more. However the issue at hand is not the channel but the ability of the sound of the TV to help me relax.  And if writing can’t be liberating or relaxing then it should merely help things to stay as it is without making the writer feel burdened by the act nor making them feel any better. It should maintain the status quo, just blend with the mood. Just like this song ‘Nightcall’ playing in the background. It  compliments my nights without polluting it with thoughts or emotions.

Lately, I’ve turned writing into a burdensome exercise. There is a lot of self-editing going on in my head even before express something.  The outcome then lacks originality. It kills the very objective of writing. The thrill of putting out your thoughts into words is gone.It turns into a shot gone bad because the object is now self-conscious of the camera lens pointing in her direction. An element of manufactured reality seeps into the picture. Hope you got what I meant.

Food

Prescription for Writer’s Block

My prescription for writer’s block is to face the fact that there is no such thing. It’s an invented condition, a literary version of the judicial “abuse excuse.” Writing well is difficult, but one can always write something. And then, with a lot of work, make it better. It’s a question of having enough will and ambition, not of hoping to evade this mysterious hysteria people are always talking about.

THOMAS MALLON

It was about a week ago that the thought of writing something occurred to me in recent times. It was right after I finished watching ‘Julie & Julia’. Julie’s blog was an inspiration. I thought of all the things that could be written throughout the movie. But wrote nothing when it was over and that was that.