A World City-l

ike
 eel like a small town today ...
And I feel like a metro.
You know, whenev er you pass by South Ex, I feel
like Karaw al Nagar.
Shut up, you're crazy. In Delhi, everyone feels like

Delhi.
That's not how it is. Not everyone in Delhi is Delhi. Just
like everyone doesn't have love in their eyes •••
Okay, but then how am I South Ex?
Just like I am Karaw al Nagar.
You're rig~t ...
You know, if this Barahp ula flyover wasn't there, then
the distanc e betwee n South Ex and Sarai Kale Khan
wouldn't have shrunk so muc;h.
Are you in love with. me or with the city?
With the city; becaus e my city is you.

3
 is ci ty becomes so em
pt y at ni gh t, no!
It seems everyone ha s
le ft it al on e an d
somewhere. C om e no, 9°
le t us m ak e this cityne
la ug h tonight. Let it no
t sleep at all. We'll eith
er I
over th e police ba rr ic ad ,
es or ge t ta ng le d in ou eup
r own
tr ap s in th e da rk an d
fall.
W ha te ve r yo u do, this
ci ty will still seem em pt
9 at night.
Why?
. I
Because no one lets go
o f th eir· loneliness ju st like
th ut

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 .
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n... madhur
aranga teri yaad mein... nain hue bechai
. .. vo amva
tumhare milan bin... din katte nahin rain
at mein
ka jhulna... vo peepal ki chaanv... ghungh
... aaj ujad kar rah
jab chaand tha... mehndi lagi thi paanv
gaya... vo sapnon ka gaanv...
s are restless still...
(Saranga, in 9o ur memory ...my eye
y doesn't pass, nor the
without 9o ur sweet arm s ... the da
o hranch... the shade
night will ... the swing on the mang
was in your veil...an'
of the pe ep al tre e ...wh en t~e moon

5
 henna on your feet I could see... today all of it is I
Ost
the dream we thought could be...) ...

Don't know why I'm listening to this song like sorne

news slowly trickling in. Today this song feels like
0
Facebook status. As if someone was remembering the
mango and peepal trees they Jo_st long ago. Even fortg
years ago, nostalgia felt- exactly like this. Village after
village was being deserted. When this love song gives
a little sigh of separation, it feels like a Village being
left behind. This was perfectly natural. Even though
the villages settled the cities, they made the supply
of ~emories so unending that no one living in a cit!)
ever gives comparisons for leaving a cit9 behind. Like
in 9our memory, the flyover over Moolchand seems so
lonel9, travelling in the metro so alien .

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 tn only changing rooms. No
t cities.
1bis pushp Vihar room ha s
all our memories and
you say you're only changing
rooms.
tenant ha s no cit y of his ow
see, 0 n. 1here must be so
!llanY cities living in the lakhs
of houses in De}hi. I'd
found you on th e terrace of on
e such house. Now only
the address is going to change.
No, you're no t an emotional m
an at all. I wish this city
had a he m..•
What would yo u do wi th it?
We would've m ad e our room
be lo w that hem.

-
.i
' I 1

' !
••
 e rustling
h i n t h e bu
t em bot shes i n N
h. From t ehru Park
h a t clump scu d
with thro o f le0;ves s
t w0 k· d b b i n g ey omeone
1n s o f p e s was eati
eople try n g them up
t o f i n d se . On\
Delhi-th c l u
ose who d e d places
w i s h t o lo in
who wis v e e a c h other an
h t o see p d those
e o p l e lov
nervousn ing e a c h
ess, they other. I n t
g o t u p ~o heir
stir in th quickly t h
e nearby a t there w
bushes a s as a
police h well. T h e
ad come. lovers t h o
He remem ught the
kind of b e r e d wh
a c i t y is a t ' she s a i
this? A l w d-what
ays chasi
n g t h e bo
dy!

~ - -i

,: -

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~
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•
 om the Barahpula flyover-the hack of
Humayun's Tomb, the terraces of Nizamuddin,
cl~thes drying upon them. As soon as she gets
. ! ' .• •

out of the car, she says, this place feels like being in
between the roof and the sky; even at this height, it
feels like that lit~le ground wedged betw~en Delhi and
9our love.·
Removing the camera from the eye, I smile. Say only
this-this bit of Delhi is just like re.lief, no? Just like
you...
 e sunrays be
g a n to recede
as i f someone
slowly drawin ,..
g the win<:lo
w-curtain. He
YV Q s

s a r i c a u g h t th r or
e breeze com un9e
One hand on ing from the
the railing a n G an
d one in h e r h gu.
b a c k s to w a r and. Their
d s th e H o w r
a h Bridge. 1h
p a s s in g by. I ousands o f pe
n f r o n t o f the ople
m, the G a n g
solitude. lh e a h a d become
r e was only o
ne wall betw
a n d th e river. een the city
lh e ir backs.
Letting their
w a ll , b o th dr backs become
enched th e ir
dreams in the
H o w r a h Brid balcony o f the
ge.

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II

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 - - oth of them liked being out on Delhi roads at
dawn: As they reached the DND flyover from
Sarai Kale Khan they could see a red sun over
Okhla, and as they went down t~wards Ashram, she
said-~f ~nly the Yamuna flowing below us had been
. no.?
a11ve,
He got a little bothered by this sudden, pretentious
love for nature.
I •

I have come all the way from Yamuna Vihar, I'm dead
I

tired, and all you can think of is the river. How many
cities will we move in this one city to look for a place!
 ' ,

ey had met at the Ch att arp ur temple

. But what
they liked was si~ting aro un1 in J.a
~~ Masjid.
In the guise of soaking in history,
, a moment
I

of seclusion in the present. After ea~

'

i~g .at Karim's,

they would always climb up the mi nar
I

et at the Masjid.
Going up the narrow stairs, there wa
s bot h the fear of
.•
watching Delhi from such a height and
'

the consolation
of holding each other's hands. It was
. this electricity of
'
.
touch tha t was making them into city
fol~s. Afte~ all,
there are n't tha t many places in Delhi
where you cannot
bu t walk while brushing against each
other.

ll
 I
___...... e irnpatience to
go to some new place an \
d
spend ho ur s ju st look
ing at her brought us
to
I(arawal Naga.r. 1h e
. h an d its pr et ty homes
exact opposite of Gre
ater \
I(at1as_ , th e place of desolatio
n
d ha lf..way houses. H er be
011
au ty left uncovered by
d
s cause a se ns at io • n 1n
• Kar aw a1N
cloth e agar. Its people
to st ar e at he r from
began th e terraces an d street
s
. where ha ve yo u go •
sh tt, t me? We could have
easih1
o those farmhouse ro :J
gone t ad s in Mehraulil
.r

13
 e crowds i n
the cramme
•B a d a r p u r d Khanpur-
b us carried th to-
e two o f the
w h e r e ever m to a. .
y o n e excep
With the p t them was
u s h from th a strangerC. tt~
e horde gett
t h e 9 were s ing i n a t ev
e n t closer a ery sto \
n d closer to p,
t h e bus wa each other.
s running s Though
traight, the
t u r n i n g so y thought i
rashly a t ea t wa.s
ch b e n d t h a
the other t t they should
o keep them hold
from falling
love come . Such corne
u p o n their rs for
own i n a cit
stared at in y. Even afte
I a crowd. r bei~g
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 0 ---
Ill \ I. I \..
-·
'..,...-~ Vt

I
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~......,lr.-- . 6 6
,s

. -~ M
~~::::--,- _______ __..
't
-1.:.--

_,......o escape the rain he parked the scooter under

the Moolchand Flyoyer. They were so lost in
each other they didn't even notice all the other
scooters waiting around them for the rain to end. For
no reason at all he kept try~ng to become her umbrella
and she felt good under an umbrella she didn't need
underneath a flyover. All the people around them
stared as if they were a leftover piece of cloud...

15
 omething
o r the othe
r h a d been
a l l walls. E written on
very s t a t u s
h a d been s
comments tuffed with
. Riding o n
emerging a horse, h e
from t h e r could be se
ising sun. I en
depression n this city
, every like beset b~
seemed as
horse's hoo s a d as a dis
ves c l a n g e like. 1he
d o n t h e pic
p e o p l e res tures. Pictu
ting i n par res o f
k s , resting
this city o i n arms. H
f silent ton orseman. ln
gues, h e r e
the death a d s t h e dec
o f words. E laration of
very w o r d
the wall o was shot a
f statuses. n d hung on
I n t h e clos
eyes o f t h e e-up o f the
horseman camera, the
are brutal.
This city is
covered

I ._
 ' ~orp.ses of words. There's no such thing which
by t he
, been said. There's no such corpse which hasn't
hasnt
addled with the firewood of words. It's onlu in
beens :1
of a spark that the horse man kept running.
5earc
h -
n1..· is a city of walls, ·sir. Here, a dead body
1111S
of words
•
is banging on each wall -this voice drove him mad.
'!he horse neighed. Lifted its legs. The horseman leaned
backwards. Rose towa rds the sky. Millions of words
were flakes now, flying in the air. Getting entwined
with each other, maki ng a netw ork of sorts. The city .. .is
getting buried in a dictionary. • '

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