Saddi Delhi! - The Extreme City

It's winter! Mid-December in Delhi and if you choose to enjoy this moment, there is always that chilly stray breeze which spreads a sweet bone chilling to your core. As anyone who’s spent a good long time in Delhi would concur, the best part of the Delhi experience is the winter starting around after the fireworks clouds settle after Diwali ending with a colorful blast around Holi in March. The city slows down for these 3 months, almost into hibernation. The people become more tolerable in this period, to almost South Indian standards.

It's 10AM on a winter Sunday and the sun is as lazy as the people are, barely poking out of the thick fog that it rests itself on. After a stressful summer effort of burning down on the city, it is a well deserved break. A lazy winter Sunday wrapped in two layers thick rajai’s (blankets) could not begin if not for the quintessential winter breakfast - butter dripping aloo parathas and ginger flavored tea; the combo is something best enjoyed on a winter morning.

The laze of this season brings along with it a unique set of aromas. Bathing becomes a bare necessity. Sweaters & pullovers get considered for a cleaning once a month if conditions are favorable. The DTC buses and Metro boogies carry along this unique aroma for the period of winter. It is not that summer does not have a similar effect but yes it’s uniquely distinguishable for an outsider or a non-regular traveler on these modes of travel.

One essential part of the Delhi experience, and a recommended must taste for the single men, are the ladies (spelled Ladiezz, emphasis on the ‘zz’) of this extreme city. Conditioned to the hardcore male dominated cultures - endorsed from the mixed cultures of UP, Haryana, Punjab & Bihar; and contrasted with the opportunities of the free thinking progressive culture of the academic & army classes. These are women you should think twice before you mess around with. It’s easy to get your heart broken by them. They are well-endowed & clever, they are motivated & driven. They are the Bloody Mary among drinks – spicy, addictive, and seductive. A habit difficult to lose! Winter or Summer they are dressed to kill.

Its 6.30PM. Its dark and the markets are swarming with people, looking for a hot glass of malai laden milk or a plate of steaming momos with a side of chili sauce or for the adventurous some ice-cream. And then who can miss the waft of warm air from the soup, kathi roll or momo stalls that are built to draw the world towards them like flies & keep them warm. Food is an essential part of the experience of Delhi. Food from the kebabs from the gulli’s of Nizamuddin, jalebi & samose from Chandni Chowk, the Chole-Kulcha walahs or the Haldirams & Aggarwal’s or quite simply the nearest Chaat walah.

As it gets past 8PM, begins the one thing that defines & captures the essence of Delhi in all its awe – The Big Fat Delhi Wedding! Women oblivious of the of the chill clad in sleeveless blouses & waist exposing sarees, rhythm-less tunes & beats of a series of bands from multiple baarat processions both driving traffic insane. Here, marriages define identity. If you are not seen well enough, you need to at least be heard enough, and if you are not seen or heard enough then you need to at least be talked about enough - Rock Concert beating sounds & crowds, Lady Gaga defeating attires, Royal wedding beating ceremonies and limitless spending. Band baaja baarat baby, it’s the biggest set of parties in town! You are a nobody if you are not invited to at least 5 weddings in a season.

Also then there are always people dying in Delhi from the weather - summer or winter, this is the unforgiving nature of the city as it is today, its ‘Extreme’. Extreme in its love and extreme in its distaste (not hate). The real battle here is not though the weather or living conditions or the many other extremities but of the rigid structure of class / status driven, with its political, army, business, rich and poor classes well separated. Almost anyone here can claim “Tu jaanta nahi mei kaun hun!” (You don’t know who I am!). Almost anyone here is eager for an opportunity to thrash someone random, reasons then trivially concocted as convenient. Everyone here is ‘Somebody’! Everybody is ‘Extreme’! If you are not, then Delhi is not for you.

We live in Unromantic times …

When was the last time something MAGICAL happened to you? ...

The twinkling eyes of surprise, honest eagerness, the midnight oil, the elation of possession of something awaited or the presence of a loved one and all those little things that made everyday feel like a romance with life, are lost somewhere. These are for sure unromantic times! These are times when we fail to remember the last time we felt things were magical enough to make us feel reality as only a passing and that there is something greater and better.

I wish I could be there on spring afternoons when eager children awaited the keeper to go off sight, to break into a protected mango orchard, armed with self-made catapults & stones. Mango trees with branches heavy of ripe fruit - a bright pleasant sight - struck free of their weight by the children who then devour the mangoes – a fresh yellow & green.

My fervent heart fantasizes the times when love letters and stolen moments captured in poetry were treasured as memoirs of great displays of affection between lovers. Times of Shakespeare, Keats & Ghalib. Moments that were passed on over generations as models of how love could be a candle in the dark. I envy those times when distance could churn a deeper sense of affection in lovers than break it.

There was time when the theatre & films were the primary inspiration of the lives of many; where they searched for inspiration to churn realities. Long queues and journey’s after, the pleasure of the plain two-tone printed paper – the ticket, shone like gold. To engage elated in the elaborate states of fiction where death evaded the hero as the mother’s devotion infallible protected him and he always got away with the best woman.

I look for inspiration into a time, when there were no politicians, but were leaders &/or legends who inspired masses with nothing but pure will. Those who made death feel like rebirth. They were men & women who could not be stopped by the many things that could arrest mortal souls in their steps. Almost divine their presence could awe all and sundry to action in blind faith.

We live in such unromantic times where the magic is lost. The inspiration is lost. There is pain, doubt & ignorance that disturbs us and takes us away from all that is and could be magical with our lives. There is a growing space in my heart for those lost & simple but magical moments. I only pray now that I could find a few of my own and you could find yours.

Let’s make life more romantic!

~ Arun Raj ~

~ Pursuit of Love ~

Oh blessed are thee, those hurt in love.
Of journey’s done in the pursuit of happiness
This be the noblest of them.

~ Arun Raj ~

Images from Krista - Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist

~ Dancing for Wings ~

I danced until my heart cried
Praying wings for my feet – they pained.
Awaited now the flight.

~ Arun Raj ~

~ Sweet Pain of Love ~

So blue my heart of the pain of love,
That the red of my blood turns green
In the envy of its displeasure !

~ Arun Raj ~

~ Spirit Free ~

I bathed in the light of a thousand candles.

To yellow to white and to gas I turned.

And now free of my body at last;

I can fly beyond my human boundaries cast.


~ Arun Raj ~
March 16, 2010

Image Credits - Richard R Young

Pictures - Friends lost, Love found

Some pictures of a past
Long behind - stand out!
Of friends, lovers & moments
Set apart by time, captured in Pictures.

A cup of tea, a shared smoke,
A cake smudged across faces,
T-shirts worn alike or the cheap hang-outs
We spent time at - all shine clear now.

Oh younger we were
As babies, brothers, sisters and
Trying Teenagers.
Unbound, unfolding like an intense book.

Tears find the corners of the eyes
Like a puppy to its ball.
An overwhelmed heart
Pumps out emotions lost.

The age of each picture evident
In pecks of dust gathered,
The crumbles on some
And the tear on others.

Our faces growing older
The signs of age taking over.
People in our arms changing
But not the love we share.

Some love of a past
Long behind - comes back!
Of friends, lovers & moments
Set apart by time, captured in Pictures.


~ Pushku (Arun Raj), 17.08.2010 ~
Dedicated to Shiju, Jikku, Pappi, Jestin, Lisha, Ashi & Albert who know me best as 'Pushku' - Love you guys :)

A Woman I knew

I once knew a woman.
Light as a feather she tread;
Watching every stone underneath,
As she took each step
Lost in the delight
Of watching her own steps take flight.

I once waited for her
On a busy street – eager.
Around the corner I keep watching;
A minute – a decade, and
A second – a year, it feels,
But time had lost its purpose.

I once sat with her – listening keen;
Of poets living from the pages
Of books – worn, and words – animate.
My time was now a machine;
Tick-tock it did. But my heart – anew,
Sang to me – ‘The beginning, the end is all here!’.

I once sat to write a song about her.
I strung a few words together, on a stray paper.
And I wished they felt fit in her tribute.
But they ran away – insecure!
Into a jungle of memories;
All they send back was – Special!

I once sat with her across
A table - uneasy between us!
Something in her sent me fetching
Each time I looked at her.
As if my words eloped
With her singing spirit.

I once walked alongside her
In loops around – as no end seemed right.
How much we wished
Each moment stood &
Each tingle we felt evaded time.
Oh, how little we knew each other!

I once had to say goodbye.
Some say I cried & others say I laughed
When I had to leave her behind.
I wished hardest then;
To stop my broken heart's leak!
But goodbyes evaded me.

I do wish now that we could do it all again
The endless roads, the poets forlorn,
The lost time & the busy streets;
Her hand in mine!
With a passing gale now I wish to it -
Take me along to her - that Woman I knew!

~ Arun Raj - 15/08/2010 ~
Dedicated to a special lady

Photo by rsplatpc