"Kaun jaye Ghalib, Dilli ki galiyan chhor ke."
Mirza Ghalib
Delhi as an immortal city because for the more than a thousand years of its continuous existence, this city has witnessed changes as no other part in the world but has stayed put and moved ahead with survival and development. Delhi, the capital of India, a city which was destroyed seven times but rose from its ashes like a phoenix and emerged stronger every time.
The city is as full of surprises as a Pandora Box. One can never expect the obvious out of it. You may suddenly find a ruined arch many hundred years old beside a recently-built bungalow, or see the reflection of a high-rise in the waters of an ancient step well. We all have to discover Delhi for ourselves for the city has a unique way of presenting itself to each one. For a tourist or someone not familiar with the intricacies and delicacies the city has to offer, the city might be a just a mirage and he might need to dig in deep to get to its heart. The city exudes an aura that is unparalleled and its charm hard to resist. It is an image of prosperity, of power, of fusion of culture, an economic power and an epitome of success and growth. It is from here the country runs. Most of the major national decisions, issues, and their solutions find their origin here. Here live the most influential, powerful, and important people of the country. The culture diversity the city offers is overwhelming. It is here you find people from all walks of life, religion, caste coexisting. On first impressions, DELHI, with its jam-packed streets, tower blocks and temples, forts, mosques and colonial mansions, can be both disorienting and fascinating. It certainly takes a while to find one’s feet, as one attempts to weave a path through buses, trucks, nippy cars, mopeds, rickshaws, cows, bullock carts, hand-pulled trolleys and even the occasional elephant being ridden along with the flow of traffic. One will find unlikely juxtapositions are everywhere you look: suit-and-tie businessmen rub shoulders with traditionally dressed orthodox Hindus and Muslims; groups of young Delhi-wallahs pile into glitzy bars and discos while turbaned snake charmers tease hypnotizing moans out of curved pipes; pundits pontificate while sadhus smoke their chillums; and ragged beggars clutching dusty children plead for a little help towards a meal.
Delhi's daunting scale becomes more manageable as you start to appreciate that, geographically as well as historically, it consists of seven successive cities, with British-built New Delhi making an eighth. Home to a crore of people (ten million, that is), it's big and, due partly to a tremendous economic boom, it's growing, but tucked away inside its modern suburbs and developments you'll stumble across tombs, temples and ruins that date back centuries; in some cases, the remains of whole cities from the distant past sit happily amid homes and highways built in the last decade or two, if that. The result is a city full of fascinating nooks and crannies that you could happily spend weeks or even months exploring.
Delhi, this is my city. I have grown up here, received my lessons in life in this city. The city has taught me how to co-exist with my neighbours, with nature, the birds and the cows as we all jostle together for our spaces. The city has taught me to appreciate music, food, arts, and the smell of mud as it begins to rain. I see the ruins of century old buildings around me and I learn that even the great kings and empires crumble to dust and die never mind you and me. I thrive in the rich colours and traditions of this city, the city teaches me co-existence, it teaches me that there is enough space under the sky for us to live and let live. The city teaches me not to be possessive, it lets me go when I get too restless and I promptly come back to it all excited to tell her about places far and beyond. She then sits me down and tells me how centuries back someone had come to her from that far away land and tells me stories of great battles fought, stories of valor and courage, stories of deceit... Just when I thought that I knew all that was to be known about Delhi she opens another chapter of herself to me. It’s almost like when I was in Class Two, I thought I had mastered math by learning to add and subtract! Delhi teaches me to keep myself warm in winter and forces me to stay warm in summer in spite of my best efforts. In those hot summer months when I can't sleep because of the heat I just come out and stand on my balcony and throw up my hands and say I give up and Delhi replies with the monsoon. She deluges me in a torrent of water, washes the trees clean - and even the street dogs look clean and cared for.
In retrospect, Delhi has lost its virginity, and is losing the ‘Dil’ it was symbolic for. Delhi is an easy city to caricature – bleak, dirty, loud, and crowded. And it is certainly all that. But reality is simultaneously substantially more mundane, and textured. Its history is intriguing, but sadly almost entirely taken over by the Government, paan-stained to beyond death - the Indian equivalent of airbrushing. The hypocrisy is terrible - women in purdah one moment, sex with a grand daughter the next. A city bereft of culture; abused by its own people. As the seat of power for centuries, Delhi is a bitch, accommodating only those who are willing to pay the price she demands. Like a graceful nautch girl, she has - and history is witness - turned away those who failed to meet her demands. But still it is a city that carries the hopes and aspirations of people living in it, the location of deaths, marriages, jobs, cars, monuments, history, politics, money, and more. One can take respite, if so is needed, in the beauty of some of its monuments, sometimes in just its familiarity, in its 'traditions' and 'landmarks', even in its oppressive heat, food, conversation, and intimacy of friends and family, among other things.
It is right that dilli dil waloon ki hai but in the other sense it would be right that `abhi dilli door hai`
