Rude City

It doesn’t take too much to lose it up north. There are two ways to read the earlier statement. On one hand, it’s about losing it in the head and the other, more relevant aspect is that people who live up north in India come to the planet with this trait ingrained in them.

Delhi is not an easy city to like. There was a day, during the months after I first started to live here, that I told myself that one year is all I will give to this city. That was not to be as the Lord above heard that resolve louder than any prayer of mine. He knew how to show he was the boss and decided to ground me in Delhi till date. When you are stuck, you can only so much to try to free yourself. So I decided to free my mind instead, to embrace the city of space. Yeah, it is really huge. This probably is the only definition that I can attribute to Delhi that still has a positive connotation. Each city teaches you a lot of things but Delhi teaches you a tad more than you can brace up to. You learn to deal with abrasiveness that is so in your face, aggression that doesn’t have a mother or a cause, callousness that puts devils to shame, crassness that will make you try harder to remember the last good thing you heard, insensitivity that sends shivers down the spine of even butchers, and many such more glorious attributes of the made it ‘Crude’. But I have grown to love it over the years. The mantra is to ignore respectfully as one can’t reason with madness.

Walk into a general store and you know you are not wanted. The shopkeeper doesn’t care if you buy are not, and he does not make the effort to sell. The economics of demand and supply play up, almost always. The mall culture promised to change that a bit but that was just an aberration. Talk to an auto driver and you will get a firm lesson on how to say ‘No’. Try to travel in a bus and you would get a first hand feel of how to grope. Road rage is commonplace which one can be subjected to even if you are walking. You can stay at the same house for years and not know your neighbor. People just don’t make the effort to be pleasant. They specialize in making life harder than what it is. There is anger and indifference everywhere. And it loves to provoke itself raise its ugly head at the slightest cue.

But there are extraordinary moments of endearment that I have experienced that made me tighten my embrace for Delhi. There also have been a multitude of instances that make one cringe as well, sadly. The predominant Punjabi culture and music does add that lilt to your life and a spring to your step. To smile is a concept that people up north doesn’t quite warm up to too easily. It’s the whisky and the chicken that almost always break the ice.

The average man on the streets is hopeful but scared. The Metro and the BRT have made their impact in opposite ways. The largest city of India and the nerve center of governance has a long way to go to be one of the best in the world. I won’t mention the fracas around CWG as it is an issue about national pride and not about the national capital.

For me, right here, right now, Delhi is a Rude City. Love it or hate it but learn to ignore for your own good.