Hustler. Sarnath Banerjee. Delhi

So I promise I am not plugging in work stuff but this conversation was one of the most exciting conversations of my work life. I absolutely loved doing this interview, transcribing it and then finally putting it together. Banerjee is a genius, ofcourse.  

“There was this feeling of stumbling about in the city, waiting for things to happen, like the characters in the book Corridor. We all had this strange feeling that life is elsewhere. There was a sense of melancholy and this sensation that there are great things outside, while you are walking on the Ashoka Road. The evening would fall in Connaught Place and your mind would fill with expectations that something would happen, but nothing was going to happen and you were just going to go back home.” 

You can read the whole piece here.

Dont ever ask me why I wana move back to Bombay

Delhi. This is a city which should be awarded for having the largest chunk of horny perverted men roaming freely on the road
This is a city which is cold (And I strictly refer to the metaphorical meaning of the word cold)
This is a city which is frigid.
This is a city which wants to keep staring at you and make you feel uncomfortable
This is a city which makes you feel alienated
This is a city which does not have a sea
This is a city which is slow
This is a city which does not respect time
This is a city which doesn't inspire me
This is a city which does not smile at me
This is a city where I hate even stepping out of the confines of my house
This is a city which is not polite
This is a city where neighbours are nosey
This is a city where I dont get a cab as soon as I get down
This is a city where I am completely lost
This is a city which makes me feel more lonely then ever

Now, don't ever ask me why I want to move back to Bombay!

Bombay to Dilli

I think one of the toughest and bravest decisions I have taken in my life so far is to move back from Bombay to Delhi after five years. I started my work life in Bombay after doing my post grad from Xavier's! It sounds like a cliche now but I feel I have actually grown up in Bombay. I have had the most good times and some of the most bad times in Bombay.

Not that Delhi did not offer me its share of experiences. After all, I have been born and brought up in this city. However, may be I was too cocooned and too naive till the time I was in Delhi. Bombay made me grow up and learn things on my own. The last five years have introduced me to so many interesting and so many weird people. Some of the people from each category will be friends for life.

This blog post is not exactly supposed to be a nostalgic trip to the past. This is to look forward to my time in Delhi. I want to explore the "artistic" and creative side of Delhi which I have not explored till now. I want to make the most of this "comeback". Excited!

Delhi Winters

One of the very few things I really miss about my hometown Delhi is "Delhi winters". Winter is my favourite season. There is some sort of romance attached to it. I have so many memories of my almost 21 winters spent there.

I love dressing up in winters. The layers and layers were just so fascinating. Bright colourful clothes- Skeevees, mufflers, socks, sneakers, cardignas, sweaters, warmers, shawls...Surpisingly however cold it has been, I have never ever worn a woolen cap or gloves...Just some sort of weird aversion...

Anyways,I remember leaving home for college at the time when fog is in no mood to give up...We would wade through it to go to Delhi University which is even colder than the normal residential areas. Our asses would freeze wherever we would sit. And we would have one cup of nescafe coffee after the other throughout the day...I somehow always feel more happy and peaceful during this season.

There is always a better variety of food too during winters. Especially in Delhi, there are lots of things which are only eaten during this season..Though I am personally not fond of many of those things like baajra khichdi, sarso saag n stuff but its nice to have these delicacies reserved for winters. It truly deserves all the special treatment.

I also have some wicked memories when I was in school and on lots of days I would just pretend to take bath in the morning (eeeuuuu i kno!) And in the night, I would really get angry when my father forced me to brush my teeth once I have tucked myself in my oh-so-cozy quilt. Once in a while, my dad would also give us a little brandy which was diluted in warm water. Now that was something I would look forward to (The seed for my love for alcohol was sown long back). It was the tastiest beverage I had ever had till then!

I miss "Delhi Winters". This year, after four years, I am planning to spend atleast few days in Delhi during December :)

Chandni Chowk n Haldirams!!!!

Nostalgia is such a beautiful moment. I figured this when I visited Chandni Chowk during my recent visit to Delhi (home). I realised that I had probably not gone there even once after I shifted to Mumbai.

As a child, Chandni Chowk trip used to start with my famous cribbing sessions. I used to simply hate going there because it was and is always sooooooo crowded, congested etc. That time my mom could easily use her force on me so she often would drag me along even if I cried during the way or not prayed in the temple at all.

And if she had to buy something from there like some spices or some sari or whatever, she would take me to those dirty narrow gullies where u have to turn left and right, left and right atleast ten times before she could get to "her shop" or I remember going to this aunt’s place (forcefully ofcourse) in the famous paranthe wali galli (again a narrow zigzag kind of weird lane with weird smell of all kind of parathas which were famous for some weird reason that I could never figure).

The only little ray of light used to be Haldiram’s. I would freak out on their kachauris and dhokla and kaju barfi. We would often get loads of stuff packed from there and then I would have a smile on my face while coming back home!

Anyways those were those days. There was something different that I felt during this recent visit to Chandni Chowk. Since the time I have started living on my own in Mumbai, I have gradually kind of become a “traveller”. I look at things with a new perspective , with a new meaning. I actually, for the first time, saw that inspite of all the things I used to hate about the place as a kid, Chandni Chowk is a such an exuberant, beautiful and absolutely unique place. Interestingly, there is amosque, a Gurudwara, a temple and a church within few steps of each other ( a fact that my brother was pointed out that day).

Overall, there is wonderful air around the place. There is that sense of rush, a positive rush in Chandni Chowk which lacks in almost the rest of the Delhi. The name itself is one of the most interesting names of places that I have ever come across! The architecture is undoubtedly extremely interesting. It looks like it has been there since eternity in a rather beautiful way. The old open cycle rickshaws, which have been replaced with new swanky ones in most part of Delhi, still exist in here (I absolutely adore them). My brother told me about this new Cafe Coffee Day which has opened there which has been designed in a beautiful Mughal style...(Unfortunately I could just get a glimpse of it from the car)....It looked quite unique n fun! And as usual my trip ended with the good old Haldiram’s kachauris, dhokla n amazing Kaju sweets.