Revisiting, deja vu

What strange things memories are; how stealthily they take over a happy sleep; how they wake you up in a funk and then disappear. And here I am, 5 am morning, iPod crooning old songs of obsession in my ears, me browsing the internet aimlessly, only to discover my own secret library of memories. So many memories, so many imploding emotions, masked with a writerly cleverness I didn't even know I possessed.

Sorry my blog, sorry my little private universe in first-person, I have ignored you for so long. I write still, so very often, mainly when I want to let myself drown in the sweet pain and longing of irony. I morph my deep dark musings still, in sugar-high tones, and ferret them out into the world sometimes. Like with this new 'column' I'm writing for First City, which I will store here from now on. Posting the first and second in the series today. xoxo.   

Rude Interview with the Dilliwali

Hello, who the hell are you?

My CV would say I’m a dancer, ex-journo, paper jewellery artist, domestic goddess extraordinaire and serial To Do list-maker. I’d say I’m just someone who has spent too much time observing her city, and does not anymore know how to observe herself without doing that.

And so, that’s good enough qualification to write this column? What do you know about Dilli that I don’t, or the reader doesn’t?

Oh, this column is definitely not about tallying Dilli trivia scores. That phase of my life when I was a Dilli-trivia hunter-gatherer journo (you know, that irritating person who would suffix any given Dilli-discovery of yours with, ‘Oh well, but the real story behind this is…”), is so, like, over. Now, the more I meet Delhi, the more I feel that I don’t know potty about it. The more I observe Dilli, the more it seems go from mystery to paradox. She's changing inside me. Or maybe I'm changing with her.

Huh? Explain.

I like that Delhi has no grand narrative, no two-word, own-me phrase. I like its most frustrating traits: all the ambiguity that sometimes makes place for more intimate encounters than familiarity, all the contradiction that refuses to resolve itself. That if you say ‘I love Delhi’, you also mean that you like things that are banal and special, beautiful and dysfunctional all at the same time. It knocks me about, topples me over, like a favourite new song.

So why delusional?

Oh-k. Do you remember that poem from the movie Before Sunrise?

No.

Okay, so there was one line in it that went something like, ‘I’m a delusion angel/ I’m a fantasy parade’. Ditto for Delhi, and the Dilliwala/li. Whatever you think of Dilli, has to do with who you are, it’s your delusion. In some ways, Dilli can be described only as a place somewhere between experience, memory and imagination. I don’t know many people who can talk about Delhi without getting autobiographical. I’m no exception.

Ok, so are you sure this isn’t a column about you selling me the ‘celebrating Delhi’ talk?

Nah, I’m not gonna tell you to love your Lal Qila and Qutub Minar. I’m not gonna tell you how you must find some Delhi-belongingness by spending moolah at a seasonal fair or culture-vulturising yourself at a dance festival. I’m not gonna tell you to be brash, aggressive, sit on the horn, stick your head out of the car window and yell ‘Oh teri!’ to feel the surge of true blue Dilliwala/li-ness.

Then what’re you gonna write about? Is it gonna be a lot of intellectual wank?

No I’m just going to pluck stray Dilli observations like stalky cherries from a bowl. I’ll taste them randomly, hold their piths to the cruel Dilli sun, and observe their gorgeous flaws and contradictions. I might write about cobalt skies, blood orange Gulmohars, Semal trees with dancer-like bare arms and wagging-tongue red flowers. About the amusing quirks of travelling in the ‘Ladiej compartment’ of the Delhi Metro. The pressure of being a culture-vulture in the city, while we miss the fact that we live with random art everywhere. The effect of Facebook on socialising in this city. People living in oblivion of the idiosyncracies of technology. Sometimes I’ll just cheat and make it a rant that demonstrates my abilities as a certified whine-connoisseur; my favourite topics being driving in Dilli and dogphiles.

So that’s what this column is?

Yes, it’s my shoebox full of vulnerabilia. It’s how I explain 'being a Dilliwali': through my motley assortment of embarassingly personal observations that always always, find connections with the city. All the experiences and thoughts, that I dream, live, hate, and obsess about while moving around in this mad, sprawling, chaos-tied-in-spidersilk city. That’s why, Dilliwali. That’s why, delusional.

(Swaati Chattopadhyay is a writer, dancer, compulsive analogy-weaver, who has a happily complicated relationship with her frog-in-a-Delhi-well life. There’s nothing she’d love more than a piece of your mind in her inbox, at delusionaldilliwali@gmail.com).

BOX:

THINGS THAT KEEP THE DILLIWALI SANE

Okay now what’s this?

Oh it’s where I tell you about the little things that are currently keeping me tethered to sanity in this whirlwhind city. Things I’ve discovered after hours of sandpapering my chappals on Dilli roads: a great meal; a great read; a great recipe; a great haircut. Stuff like that.  

Aw, goddess of small things, you.

Thanks. In typical Dilliwali appropriatory manner, I’m assuming that’s a compliment.

Okay, gimme a tip then. Right now.

Oh, easy-peasy. My favourite lunch treat on a hot April afternoon when a 40-degree Dilli is bleaching the love out of life (vegetarians, look the other way, will ya?): Go to Triveni Café at  Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, between 1 and 3 pm). Plonk self on a mooda and ask for the following: Two Shami Kebabs, one Mirchi Parantha, one raita, one Nimbupani. Make sure they give you complimentary coriander-chutney and onions. Now, the real fun is in eating it the Delusional Dilliwali way. Open giant parantha; place Shami Kebabs in the centre and mash the hell out of them (they be crisp outside, velvety inside); top with chutney-soaked onions; drizzle some raita over the filling. Roll up and take a giant bite. Wash down with nimbupani. And now say, ‘O teri!’