DOCUMENTING DELHI:Pages from the journal of a small town girl.

SATYANIKETAN 8TH APRIL 2017
10.30 PM
Aging is a strangely enigmatic process. It announces the advent of weak bones, sagging skin and grey hair. On the other hand , it peels off layers of naivety, vulnerability and gullibility to expose a more confidant and contended version of you.
Walking through a street filled with young college going students , I'm  feeling this dichotomy become even more conspicuous. I am here at satyaniketan market located opposite venkateshwar college gate. The proximity to south campus makes it a popular hangout destination for the students.

Aere gaere log bhi padhne lage hai aajkaal: Apko aurat nahin akhbaar hona chahiye

Three girls dressed in skits and kurtis, giggling away in abandon have just crossed me. On the other side of the road , a group of boys wait for this trio to pass.....and then  rupture into loud exaltation and hi- fi 's.

Probably some sort of consent was read in the giggling of the girls......Here in Delhi, men are extraordinarily adept at recognizing consent...Some find it in the manner her fingers play with her hair. Some are able to notice consent in the way she twirls her duppata....There are still others who read consent in her resilience and composure that she has always  been trained to display, even after being rubbed off quite suggestively on DTC buses.

On one side the road is completely flanked by small eating joints...mostly takeaway points and coffee houses. One  of these coffee houses has a protruding patio. A Girl sits there having a cup of coffee and  holds a hard bound book in her hand. She is surrounded by three stray dogs who refuse to leave her alone. In intervals she stops reading and pats on their back. I try to get closer to get a glimpse of what she is reading.. Young girl...around eighteen or nineteen...I really hadn't expected this..  I am slightly bemused to find that the book she is reading is an English translation of Klidasa,s famous work- Meghdoot.
The very next moment she pulls out a sutta from her bag  and in deep contemplation about the clouds of meghdoot she starts bellowing her own clouds of smoke. This city is ready to sweep you off with surprises at every corner... Let me admit, my heart does a little jig jag whenever I see a youngster deriving succor from books rather than technology...and my heart sinks a bit whenever I see these bright young people being so oblivious about making healthy choices.{ And i'm just not being judgmental) ..I told you..aging....I think is taking its toll...I've already started talking like her preachy mom.😊

DOCUMENTING DELHI : Pages from the diary of a small town girl.

2nd APRIL 2017
Dhaula Kuan Bus stop.
1.00 pm

Dhaula kuan bus stop is crowded as usual. The April sun is  shining away in glory forcing people to scramble for little islands of shade here and there. Few college girls wait for their buses, their faces and headS dexterously covered in layers of fabric. I am not very sure, what are they trying to avert --the suns blaze or the male gaze. If it is the latter then the futility of their effort can be acknowledged from the ogle their bare arms are receiving from a stout middle aged " muchhad" ( man with dense mustache) standing behind them.

The "semul" tree standing just behind the bus stop is now completely devoid of the scarlet profusion that had populated its branches till about a month ago.   semul in full bloom is one of the most magnificent sights of north Indian springs. Now,a month later, some green leaves had started appearing on the fringes instead. Even for the "peepul", far away on the opposite side, the annual ritual of putting on a new garb of fresh leaves for summers has started. The leafless giant is now having russet heart shaped young leaves on some branches which in due course of time would turn green.  In  the scorching months of  May and June ,watching  millions of "peepul" leaves dancing slowly to  the dust laden winds is no less a spectacle than the "amaltaas" with its cascading yellows. peepul , however to Indians is more than just a tree. You will hardly find a peepal in Delhi devoid of flowers, dhoop batti and other pooja related paraphernalia near its base... bearing untold stories of  wishes,dreams and ambitions.

SEMUL FLOWERS

Suddenly, a fleet of red and green DTC buses shield the holy peepal  from my sight. A visibly tired old man descends a green bus wearing soiled "gamcha" across his neck with which he  keeps wiping the  sweat caught between the criss cross of  wrinkles  on his forehead.  He briefly walks towards the bantawala who has put his stall under a huge faded red umbrella, but after few mental calculations the old man turns away and chooses to buy some bananas .Probably thats a little sacrifice to make for the four bananas he will carry home for his ailing wife. . The bantawala  is  too immersed in his business to pay attention to the cacophony that surrounds him. This is business season for him. Behind an array of glass bottles topped with lemons , he is busy mixing soda, lime and Masala. TO a particular talkative customer he tells that while he sells banta for most of the year...he shifts to "chiniya badam" ( moongfali, peanuts) for the brief winter that Delhi has. Banta is undoubtedly the magic potion which makes Delhi seem like a little rebel ready to move out and conquer even as sun unleashes its  unbearable wild fury.

At a distance ,a bougainvillea creeper has created an unlikely nook for some brisk business. A thela selling "chole kulche" stands there thronged by a little crowd of migrant laborers. Listening to their  friendly banter ( and taking note of a particular accent)  I realize they are from my side of the country ..Bihar. ... For the thousands of Bihari migrants in Delhi, a simple home cooked meal of "daal bhaat chokha" cooked by their wives is  the stuff dreams are made of. So for such people Delhi's humble "chole kulche" comes to rescue. Yellow peas served with soft fluffy whitekulchas often accompanied with pickle and raw onion slices . THis one is truly Delhi's  signature street food. One that provides much needed fuel to the daily fights of survival in this strange city.

THE FALLEN FLOWER

 A harshringar flower twirled and fell down on damp earth.She picked up a few from the multitudes that lay scattered, carpeting the ground below her feet. Little white blooms ..."They look so much like sudarshan chakras "  Maa used to say. With shades of flame in its pedicel and serene white on the petals.... As if....SITA- the pure..the chaste..draped in white...sitting calmly on the leaping flames,going through the agnipariksha....

SITA who before this pariksha was the "fallen wife"...harshringar: : "the fallen flower". Maa  used  to say that you never pick these flowers off the branches...The ones which are settled on the soil are the ones which are gods favorite.

The  harshringar tree in that aangan had its branches spread out. The new sprouting leaves on the tender branches were just ready to peep out of the four walled enclosure of the aangan. Untill now it had never ever seen the world outside those four grim walls. However , this grim enclosure had had its own share of colorful memories. This harshringar was only a shrub when Papiha had first arrived as a newly wed.

The coy bride who was in all propriety only supposed to look down..not once to lift her eyes...lest they saw the little rebel caged within. All she could notice were vibrant Dhakai, glossy silks and exclusive jaamdanis. and of course the drums,the songs ,the very strong odour of dhoop batti. And very distinctly she remembered the little harshringar shrub in the corner amidst this cacophony of colours. She had one at her Baba's backyard as well. The little shrub that day seemed to her some loving relative from her maayka who made her feel warm and welcome in this alien Home.

But to Papiha- the colours, the warmth , the celebration were now images from some faraway folklore which didn't seem real in farthest of her dreams. Even childhood had no particular exciting memory.They had lived in a small hilly town near Gangtok.She never had many friends. Her mother  had lived a pious life devoted to decorating and decking up the Idiols in her sanctum. Baba owned a small stationary shop near lalbagh chowk. They were never very ambitious about Papiha- their only child.   For Papiha,there were only a few memories that still seemed remarkable enough to  revisit and relish .One of them was  her lonely excursions to the nearby hillock collecting all kinds of broken twisted branches and odd shaped pebbles..And of course -   she had always loved poetry.  Back home, Baba never used to read much,but had shelve's brimming with verses written by Tagore. She loved reading them. They meant solace.....to her they meant happiness.With years Papiha moved from Tagore TO  Neruda..On quiet summer afternoons she had unearthed the fragile psyche of man in ElioT'S transformed world...(sylvia)Plath's mind was even more intriguing...  

Mihir on the other hand was a man of the world..Practical and real. Poetry to him was unreal, immature expulsion of a overworked psyche. The enthusiasm Papiha displayed when she recited verses was beyond his comprehension. She had noticed this indifference . When ever his strained relation with his boss caused him to fume , Papiha's books were the first to be reprimanded. Throwing the hard bound copies across the floor in full rage, it brought him a sense of closure to see those loose pages strewn all over the room. While Papiha ,consumed with humiliation stood tongue tied in one corner even as this ritual unfolded before her like some surreal nightmare. She had now started keeping her books hidden and only read them when Mihir was not around. In course of time she also started scribbling little songs of love ,passion,despair and loneliness. Her little diary which her mother in law had given to keep track of monthly expenses had turned into a mute confidante  which had  witnessed the tremors of emotional upsurge metamorphing into rhythms. On several warm afternoons, Papiha sat in dimly lit staircase scribbling away as if in a trance, while the other members of family confined themselves to their bed for a lazy siesta. YES, the family ....the in laws, the brother in laws and MIHIR, the eldest son.

  

 Mihir's brothers also got married in subsequent years. The clan was growing. The income dwindling. Mihir decided to put out the room on the top floor on rent.

And thus came Sashwat. The young reporter who wrote about politics and crime in the local daily "Samay".Whenever Papiha had seen him, he was always humming something to himself, least interested in the perils of the family living on the ground floor.  Months had passed before he had even acknowledged a frail , very ordinary looking middle aged woman picking up harshringaars from the aangan early  in the morning. HE didn't know that the slightly hesitant posture while bending down that he had noticed was because of the two month old germ of life that lay pulsating in her womb.

And then the next time he saw her was on that dimly lit staircase. He had seen Papiha writing away in such madness that she had hardly noticed his arrival... and then suddenly she had looked up...Surprised ...taken aback.... . " BOUDI  can I have a look". HE had said with a friendly smile. Without any further conversation she had handed over the little diary. He had flipped through the first few pages when a rustle of soft footsteps were heard from some faraway room . But they were enough to put Papiha on her guards... leaving her most prized possession in Shashwat's  hands, she fled down the stairs disappearing in her domestic world. FOr next two days she had kept looking for Shashwat , but could find no suitable opportunity to get her diary back.

THE third morning , while picking the harshringars , quite unexpectedly ,Mihir had turned up in the aangan. Didn't say a word. Just threw a copy of morning newspaper across the floor like he did with those books.. and left the AANGAN. Along with the white blooms lay the pages  of " samay"scattered here and there. And then she saw  her poem. There, On the fourth page..."The City of masks" ,....The same one which she had read out to MIHIR as A newly wed. As the poem concluded, below it in small black font was not her name. " The unknown poet" ,said the credits.  But the one who was not supposed to know had known this unknown poet. And in matter of moments...just like those fallen flowers, she was the fallen wife.