I have officially spent most of my nights starting at the sky from my bed. Delhi is altogether a different beast at night. Like some tamed dragon ready to fly you to hidden treasure. There is a strange uncertainty about her nights. You can never be sure if you will be able to find a single star in sky, let alone constellations.
मेरे शहर का चाँद शर्मिला है
रातों में बुर्का ओडे रखता है
मेरे शहर का चाँद शर्मिला है
She teases you some nights and deprives you of glimpse of celestial wonders. There is some love-hate relationship with her. All through out the day, I despise her. She makes me sweat, she makes me fight, she makes me sick, she makes me kiss hideous pollution. She makes me feel insignificant. She makes me feel lost. Bitch!
Bollywood flirts with her, authors romanticise her. They boast this city has seen very depth of both, hope and despair. Every act of crossing the road is is a miracle of existence.
In nights, lying lifeless in my bed looking our at vast infinity I fall in love with her. Everynight. Masochism at its best. What seems like a cage in day’s light feels home in night’s darkness. Stockholm syndrome.
It accepts everybody and from everywhere. Delhi reclaims both riches and poors. The bastards she scolds in day, she holds them in nights, close to her tattered chest. She listens to our fantasies, aspirations like a lover and pats us with eternal hope.
Like a mother, she brushes our hair and tells that I am special. In day light you question your identity in the gigantic urban sprawl of 16 millions but at night she makes you believe one day you will own her.
Lying in my bed every night, observing her façade of cruelty slipping by, I watch Delhi. Sometimes street dogs barks in protest that I am hallucinating, but like a timid kid I lift my arms hugging this beautiful beast and I exclaim “Bitch! You have pulled me back again”.