Suburban Meditations Part II - Delhi Dallying
On walking around in Delhi and eating butter chicken
“This is growth, this is growth, this is growth” I hum under my breath, matching the staccato of the garbage collection train I noticed for the first time today from my window. I didn’t know they had trains with only platforms to collect track-side garbage. I call up my new friend to share my new-found knowledge, hoping he shares my enthusiasm. He doesn’t pick up. My eyes then saunter to the growing set of newly-bought plants, and they’ve already adjusted themselves to the whim of the sun, moving slightly so east-wards. It is not growth, however, that we inadvertently killed the previous four to which these chhotus serve as replacements. But it’s course correction, then, that we bought not outdoor plants, but the gamer boy/chess players of the plant world.
It’s growth that I got my nails done for the first time, an event that has surprised me greatly by just how much newness there was to everything. I regret not having done them before. I surrendered my tirades against the extremities of consumerist beauty to the lovingness of a nail tech in Delhi.[1] I can now understand Lorde’s contemplations on life and brushing them off as maybe her just being Stoned at the Nail Salon.[2] Even now, as I see the widening gap between the gel polish and the nail beds, I am surprised at how much the body is in a constant state of renewal. That is, literally, growth.
I was in Delhi two weeks ago. A muddled state of mind brought me seeking the comfort of friends in another city. There is something quieting about sleeping in a friend’s bed, them with open arms letting you inside their safe space when yours begins to feel too stuffy, too familiar. I escaped the Mumbai moisture and landed in Delhi, a summery slap to my face the moment I exited IGI terminal 1. My cough, a welcome gift.
What I love about Delhi:
My friends (A piece of my heart)
Hauz Khas Fort (Just before sunset + it’s kinda cute seeing couples in historic places)[3]
Qutub Minar (Just before the lights come on, so you can see the place light up)
Sunder Nursery and Lodi Garden (A dream for a loverboy like me)
Butter garlic naan and butter chicken from whichever place I decide to try this time (This visit it was Bhape da Hotel in CP)
Boba tea (Beats Mumbai hands down)
OLD MONEY DELHI HOUSES!!
Watching women bargain (And learning best as I can)
What I dislike about Delhi:
I cannot walk there
This makes it one of the last cities I should document as part of this series, since you see, er, it’s about walking in cities. While a large chunk of my time was dedicated to idling with the pals and working from (their) homes, I was stupidly excited about having places to walk around. Given that two of them lived in GK-2, it wasn’t too far-fetched either. This only being my second time as an adult, I might have miscalculated. I set out to walk around GK, eyes less on the road and more on the gorgeous houses all generously lined up. Scorching heat aside, I found little joy in walking alone; the streets too deserted – everyone generally needs somewhere to go to step out in Delhi, I realised. It got darker and quieter and sparser, and I went back to my friend’s apartment, disappointed and disoriented.
There’s been a murky misalignment of things in my head of late, where my ideas of love and my needs and wants from my relationships have become so clear to me that the possibility of receiving these has never felt more far-fetched. I cannot communicate these for fear of people leaving, or so I’ve been told by my lovely therapist. A familiar groove for me within which to let go, then, is taking walks with people I truly care for or wish to get to know. On the second time round on my Delhi walks, Mehak and I walked together – and it all made sense. Walking in Delhi was an activity for two. We looked at houses to observe which of their owners had personally invested time in their designing and which were cookie-cutter, neighbour copy-paste jobs. We walked the slight inclines leading to the M-block market, discussing her life in Delhi. On a dinner night with her in CP, we inhaled the rich, creamy sweetness of butter chicken and the tenderly chewy garlic naan and mirchi paratha that was slightly burned to a crisp, while overhearing Marathi tourists. Between heady sips of ThumsUp, I kept telling her what they were saying about their Delhi experience, including that they had realized I was playing translator. That was Delhi for me, I thought, as a seven-year-old and then a fourteen-year-old, seeing everything with a sense of abandon and unfamiliarity.
We walked around CP at night, her showing me her CLAT coaching centre, a time when we didn’t know each other but knew of each other. In a way, we were strangely connected much before we became the thickest of friends. She, studying in our coaching’s CP branch, and I, studying at home in Goa, were fierce competitors on online GK tests. I saw Delhi through her eyes, where her school friends met up now to drink, where she would run, where she worked out, the hospital in which she spent sleepless nights. In these conversations, something struck. Knowing that someone has let you in and given you some part of their life, when their life itself is so vast and full of love and connection, is truly, truly freeing. I rediscovered love in Delhi, and maybe grew a little in the process.
Naturally, then, I filled the city’s dimly lit roads and surprising tracts of emptiness with the boundless love I received from my friends and their families, knowing that I was cared for by people who, up until six years ago, didn’t know who I was. These days when I look at strange Mahim sights that leave me surprised, I don’t feel so alone anymore.
[Only an outsider to Delhi summers would be stupid enough to be here at 4.30 PM, but I truly had a great time.]
[1] Imagine a proper Delhi gym bro, and now imagine him telling you that the pastel green you’ve picked is perfect for the summer, although he thinks baby blue would do well too. The nicest bunch of dudes at Stroke Nails in GK-2, please hit them up!
[3] I must admit I am a little jealous of college couples that bunk to sleep on the other’s lap inside a historic passageway, undisturbed and in a world of their own.
For a post about walking around Delhi and eating butter chicken, this really touched my heart. Lovely.
Excellent!