aur pyar hua jab pinjre se, tum kehne lage aazad ho tum
A few weeks back, I met Suhas uncle, a family friend of my grand father's, settled in delhi. five years ago when I first left Banglore to move to delhi for my law grad, thatha had given me his number and and told me to contact him if I needed anything in this new and unknown place. Partially because i didnt want to disturb him, and partially because I never felt the need for it, the first time I ever contacted him was during the last week of my time in Delhi. As we sat across the coffee table, he asked me how I had experienced delhi and what I felt about it. And the only thing that I could think of which really summarised my perspective of Delhi was that the city was one which belonged to no one and yet where everyone belonged.
I spent five years of my undergrad around NCR of Delhi. Never thought I would end up falling in love with it. But there I was on my last day in the city, peeping through the window on my flight to catch one last glimpse of the city that had accepted me with warm hugs and open arms. The flight took off and I just could not hold my emotions back. I was weeping and sobbing like a baby. Tears kept flowing like a waterfall over my cheeks as I craned and strained my neck trying to make out all the different places which carried parts of my heart, from among the city lights.
Next few hours were heavy. I closed my eyes, trying to sleep through it. But I really wanted to only cry and let all my feelings out. But no matter how many tears I shed, nothing could help me wash away the heaviness I felt in my heart, saying goodbye to a city that I had grown to love so dearly.
I had of course promised myself that I would return, but now I knew that no matter where I would end up in life and no matter how many times, I did return to Delhi, no place would ever be the city that dilli became for me when I was 20 something and still trying to figure out the world and myself. The city carried my heart and my soul.
I think, up until the plane took off, the reality of the fact that I was leaving a dear place behind had really not set in. I was still somehow under some belief that I would receive some last-minute mail or message telling me that I had to cancel my travel and stay back. I was hoping and wishing on that call, but it never came and when the flight took off is when i was finally face to face with reality. This was it. I really had left. No coming back. I wished and hoped and longed even in those last moments that something would happen and I would get to return to my dear city, back to my college, my hostel and room, my friends. It was a sinking feeling knowing that it would not happen. I had spent that previous few days weeks and months explaining to everyone I spoke to about how much I was going to miss this city and yet, no words could fully capture what I felt when I actually saw the last glimpse of the city. This was where I had learnt life.
I actually have so much to say and talk about Delhi. But there are two things that I specifically want to start with which somehow answer the question of why Delhi and what is it about the city that made it so special for me. So firstly, I think it was the unique perspective I had towards the city. For most parts of the 5 years I spent there, I never actually lived in Delhi. I was living in my hostel, on my college campus, which was located about 45 minutes away from Delhi in Sonipat. So my perspective towards delhi was never fully that of an insider. I was one with one eye inside the city and one eye out. As students, we would visit the city either on weekends or whenever we had any work and in that way we were both citizens and tourists at the same time.
Everytime you mention Delhi to someone, the first thing that they talk about is the pollution and the lack of safety. Both these are very real concerns in Delhi. The pollution was definitely deadly in the harshest sense of the word. But on the safety part, due to various factors, my experience went very well against the grain. I was really extremely lucky and privileged that of the five years I spent there, not once did I ever encounter any scary incident. I know a lot of it has to do with the fact that as an outsider to the city, I always was hyperconscious of the fact that I did not have a home there and hence was always super vigilant about my surroundings and my interactions. Part of it also ofcourse was attributable to the privileges that studying in a sonipat university brings to you. But yes, despite all these, the bottom line was that of the five years, I (almost) never found myself in an unlucky position, in contrast to my hometowns where I regularly felt discarded and unwanted, harassed, molested and touched and felt inappropriately. I will talk about this in more detail in another blog perhaps, but this experience played a huge role in the way I viewed Delhi.
As someone from South India and who had spent all her life there, Delhi became special in more ways than just being the city that I got to live in during my college days. The culture, life, everything there, strangely, stirred the excitement of the unknown and exuded the comfort of familiarity all at the same time. I had grown up learning so much about delhi and yet i knew nothing about it. And when I expressed a desire to want to get to know the city, dilli welcomed my orphaned heart with open arms gave me a more than just a place to live. I now return back carrying with me learnings on life and hope. It is these souvenirs that make up my perspective on the city. And it is these for which my dil will always belong with dilli.
