Of Maths and Metro ('Delhi')

Home.

I am in Chandigarh, at Home, resting in a state of postprandial contentment (is there any other kind?). Thank god I was born into a Kashmiri family with a penchant for all things non vegetarian. ‘Rogan Josh’ is equal to ‘happiness’, in my communally biased opinion.

Coldplay plays in the background. Acoustic guitars are so much more alive, more real, than their electric siblings; sounds of wood and steel (or nylon, if the guitarist in you is a part-time bullfighter from a financially troubled EuroZone nation. Avi Ahuja, get out of my head!). I used to love Coldplay. This is before I realized that everyone else did, too. A little bit of Dominique Francon lives on in me (as she does in the rest of the teenage population who read about Objectivism in the throes of youthful idealism; basically, before they should have). Ayn ArrogantYetInfluential Rand, take a bow.

Wood and steel, though. Cigarettes and coffee. Beer and paneer. Old guitars. New guitars. Brown paper packages tied up with strings. These are a few of my inner-aesthete-self’s favourite things.

I love Sundays. I didn’t use to. No one below the age of eighteen likes Sundays. But recently, I’ve begun to appreciate the lazy nostalgia of an unwashed Sunday afternoon. Teatime of the soul. Hours suspended in time and emotion. Suspended. After a point, the sheer lack of things to do (or what I will allow myself to do; I force upon myself rest, Sabbath-style) exhausts me.

I draw apart the matte-grey curtains of my bedroom window, look out in hazy boredom: patterns of tile, upon which pigeons hop. Terracotta tiles? I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not very good with the names of such things. For example, I never know what the name of a particular shade of colour is. I only very recently found out that fuchsia is a kind of pink (it is, right?). Or, the names of birds. I barely know what a pigeon is. I can’t tell a mynah from a sparrow to save my life.
Come to think of it, that’s not entirely true. I do know what a sparrow looks like. It’s just that I’ve always thought that I don’t know. Has that ever happened to you? Like, you think you don’t know a thing, but then you do know it, but still the thought that you don’t persists. Funny.

The afternoon’s fading. Soon it shall melt into the chilly evening, and everyone shall wake up from their naps. Indian siestas. They depress me. I used to think sleeping a waste of time, as a kid. So while everyone in my family slept in the ‘noons, I used to play or read or think. It used to get lonely as hell. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel lonely at the time. The loneliness reaches out across Time and Space; haunts me now. The afternoon begotten prosaic melancholy is a relic from my childhood, something I’ve carried with me through all these years. A friend once told me that Sigmund Freud would have had a field day with me. I’m lying, actually. He didn’t really say that. But I wish someone would say something like that to me. But I don’t have too many friends who would say stuff like that. You know?

Anyway. I’m enjoying my weekend, this brief bubble of insulation from the (so-called) rigors of collegiate academic life. This break from Delhi.

I should start on my Math assignment soon. The trouble with me is, I can’t ever get started studying. Once I start, I can keep going till whichever-mealtime-is-sooner, but I have what my Father calls ‘ignition problems’. (Because it’s winters. And I hate getting out of bed. And because my Dad loves cars.)

But for the sake of the Nerd within me, I should study. I will, soon. I know I’ll keep feeling horrible if I don’t. Maybe I’ll start studying when I go back to Delhi; Home should be about relaxation and books and writing and music and family and old friends, shouldn’t it?

Home. I’m going to miss Home.  I miss it already. Which is funny, because I miss Delhi too. How can I miss both of them at the same time? Typical.

I remember hating Delhi, when I first moved to it.

…

Delhi.

Delhi. Mad, crazy, insane, rushing, controversial, self-contradicting, honking, dusty, dirty, swearing, tattooed, old, new, lonely, friendly, rude, sticky Delhi.

Delhi. Flashy and coy and oily and chilly and sun-setting and theatrical Delhi.

Delhi. Simultaneously Old and New. Dilli and Delhi. Co-existing in uneasy comfort. I miss it.

Delhi. I miss the Metro, with its steely rush and people and overcrowdedness and the twin announcers’ voices announcing that we’ve reached Kashmere Gate and Rajive Chowk and XYZ Nagar and ABC Park. I miss the shady laziness of the tree lined walks on Campus. I miss the clumps of students discussing boyfriends and girlfriends and Shakespeare and Salman Khan and Eliot and Mankiw and Ranbir Kapoor while walking to and from the Vishwavidyalaya Metro station. I miss never being able to spell ‘Vishwavidyalaya’ in my head. I miss the fests and the inane/innumerable Treasure Hunts, and I miss the (equally inane?) dance/club music so worshipped by the hip students of Delhi University. I miss the new people I’ve met in college. I miss DramSoc. I miss lounging around after class (and often during it) to the gustatory background of Irfan’s diabetes-in-a-plastic-cup chai and liquid Maggi and anda patty. I miss missing classes. I miss attending classes. I miss college. I miss you.

…

Delhi and I, we’re just beginning to make friends with each other.