Mumbai cops find a secret tunnel connecting a bar and a set of flats

An underground TUNNEL! Disguises! Secrets! This is like something out of an A rated Five Find Outers. Mumbai cops have been trying to nab this bar--Honeycomb (awesome name)--for a while, but the wily owners have been too canny for them.

Unfortunately, the bar owner's informants got wind of the police action, and before the cops could charge in, the girls mysteriously disappeared. Surprised at their sudden disappearance, Singhal and his team started searching the place. 

Their initial efforts were in vain, but after a few minutes, Singhal's team saw him banging away at a wall. Thinking he was hitting it out of frustration, the team was taken aback with Singal asked for a hammer and started breaking down the wall. The team quickly joined in and brought down the wall in a few minutes.

Sometimes, you can tell that the  reporter is having a really good time telling a story.

When the police finally managed to enter these homes, they saw women dressed as housewives. A search of their cupboards, however, gave up the game.

Who owns the movie rights to this piece of genius?

Read the whole story here. 

Sex, Lies & Videotapes is the only obvious title for these stories on the Tejpal case CCTV footage

Manu Joseph in Outlook magazine tries to reconstruct the events by the CCTV footage in the Tarun Tejpal rape case.

A person who is highly relevant to the case but who did not wish to be quoted says that the Young Woman “remembered the traumatic night differently when she sent her first complaint. When she saw the CCTV footage she saw that night with greater clarity”. Moments after the lift doors open, Tej­pal and the Young Woman are in the camera’s blind spot. Here, according to the person, “the Young Woman’s panties were at her ankles before she pulls them up. She is still somehow discreetly pulling them up as she walks. That is why she is walking at that pace though in her mind she thinks she is fleeing.

Ugh. This whole thing has drawn out for far longer than it needed to. Obviously, there has to be evidence against the accused, but obviously also, someone who is traumatized may not remember stuff word for word.

Nevertheless, everyone should have their say. And Tejpal's been asking for the CCTV footage for a while to prove his point. However, by the end of this story, I'm not sure what point that is.

His message—“the fingertips”—would turn out to be the most destructive message an Indian public figure has sent in recent times. Not only did it contribute to public outrage, it also served to strengthen the Young Woman’s claim, which was, at first, that he had tried to penetrate her with his finger, and later that he did penetrate—an act that qualifies as rape according to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013. The message was either sent by a foolish rapist who, after his crime, was implicating himself through an SMS to a competent journalist whose area of special interest was the interaction between society, law and rape. Or, it was sent by a drunken man who thought he was flirting. 

Read the whole story here. A bit fluffy, but by the middle it gets to its stride. A by-the-by, is it now okay to write whole stories about CCTV footage? Isn't that the same offence as leaking the very disturbing first email from the victim?

Also, in Hard News Media (what? Never heard of it before!) there's quite an in-depth story on rape cases and the media by Anusha Rizvi and Manisha Sethi.

Activists should realize that media can be an uncertain ally, at best, prone to be used opportunistically by both sides. If we choose it to fight our causes, we should also be prepared for a backlash when the TRPs on a particular issue begin to decline. Though Tejpal’s call for CCTV footage that he claims will exonerate him, may appear as odious to us but in a case fought through leaked emails and unrelenting kangaroo courts on prime time, this was to be expected. After all the media trial of this case started with leaked emails and not with his demand for CCTV footage.

 Read that here, a bit drier than Manu's storytelling, but makes some interesting points.

Update: Aman Sethi tweeted me a link to a Kafila story by Rebecca John which is a rebuttal to the Hard News Media piece.

Some of this outrage against the new law ( which I did not draft) , is based on ignorance – most opponents have not witnessed a single rape trial or seen how survivors are brutally treated in and out of court. An academic theoretical critique masquerading as an in-depth understanding of the subject is unacceptable when you have little or no practical knowledge.

Read that here. 

The Bandra Worli Sealink is GORGEOUS

Manjunath Shenoy in Scroll.in shares photos of this bridge in a lovely story. I remember when it was finally done, there were firecrackers you could hear all the way to my house, quite far away from the Sea Link.

Obviously, every time you travel over it, you have to take photos. Here's mine:

  

And from the story: 

At this location, the bridge is parallel to the sea front and can be viewed head-on through an the oversized replica of the Sanchi Stupa gateway. On a sliver of sand here called Dadar Chowpatty, children squeal on inflatable rubber trampolines, and Prince, Shahrukh and Mushtaq swish their tails and pull their pony carts filled with amorous couples.

Read the whole story here.

Today In Longreads: Windows XP will kill you, why must you hate on porn and/or clickbait, who can write about Bandra? (Everyone)

Loved reading these four things recently.


First, the mister in Yahoo Originals on Windows XP & how it's being phased out and what you should do (instead of panic.)

Photo courtesy Google Images/Live Mint

My first personal brush with computer 'hacking' came in the late 1990s, when a friend sent me an email attachment containing Back Orifice. An appropriate but rudely-monikered little piece of software, BO was ridiculously user-friendly and enabled anyone to completely take control of their Windows 98 computer over the Internet (also known as “backdooring”, in computer security speak). My friend, gleefully, opened up my CD drive while he was sitting at home and proceeded to flash teenage-taunting messages on my screen.

 Read the whole story here. 

Why do you hate porn stars, asks Conner Habib in The Stranger. He dated a guy who loved him, sometimes, but didn't love the fact that Conner was in the porn industry. Fair enough, you say? Here's why it's not.

I spoke at a college in Maine about porn and culture. The talk was mostly about the blurry lines between "pornography" and other forms of art. As soon as the Q&A started, a student said: What about sex trafficking?

What about it? I asked.

Well, he said, I know it's going on.

But that doesn't have anything to do with my talk. The two things aren't related.

Women are being enslaved, he said.

Why are you focusing on that after my talk? I asked.

And to the student at the other lecture, I said the same thing.

Out of everything I spoke about, why is that your question? I don't talk about the bad stuff as much because the rest of the public conversation is so focused on it.

Oh, he said. Maybe in academia, but not in the rest of the world. You just think that because you're in academia.

I had no idea what he was talking about. You're the one in academia, I said. I'm talking from my perspective as someone who's been in the porn industry for six years.

He kept talking.

The whole story here. 

While we're speaking about hating stuff, what about the word "clickbait"? Why is it derogatory? Why can't you WANT people to click on your stories? Tim Marchman asks relevant questions in Deadspin.

If journalism were as easy as tricking people into pushing buttons, it would have been automated by now. It's a trade, and the art is in satisfying a bewildering variety of competing interests by working not only in service of all the impossibly interesting stories in the world—some of them very important, some not very important at all—but also the impossibly busy people who might read them.

And finally, Diksha Basu in Outlook talks about the reactions to her earlier article on Bandra, which stirred up a lot of anger (read that one here) and why we hate people talking about the old thing we used to love like it's a new thing.

Even if I return to the same town and live in the same apartment on the same street, like Holden Caulfield discovers, nothing will actually be the same. And that is a frightening idea that forces us to cede control. It is hard to live knowing that we cannot claim sole expertise on a place we like to call home. So much of our identities is braided in with our surroundings. Knowing that nothing remains the same forces us to face a certain darkness. We know that we are being replaced, slowly but constantly.

Read the whole story here.



I'm not sure what you all think about this new links and news section that I've introduced, so tell me about it. What do you want to see more of? The long, thoughtful blog posts take time, they will still appear, of course, but this is a quick way of me giving you updates. Would you like more? Less? Suggested articles? Debate? Tell me EVERYTHING in the comments!

Narendra Modi Lookalike Chills in Delhi

I loved this story by Rishi Majumder in Yahoo Originals. I'm not following the elections very closely, but it's hard not to be clued in, when that's basically the only thing anyone can talk about.

The story follows Abhinandan Pathak, Modi's brother from another mother, doppelganger, what have you, and how he uses his coincidental face to.. well, to appear on TV, anyway.

"It's a carbon copy," he says, staring at the face of Modi, his face radiant with joy. As if Modi were the lookalike. As if Pathak was what was stalling traffic on this day on Ashoka Road. 

The reason to keep one eye on election coverage, even if it's really not your scene is to see the smaller human interest stories that emerge from it. Here's a dude, with nothing more to his name than a resemblace to a man who happens to be on TV all the time. Here's how he's capitalizing on it.

He's especially upset with Laxmikant Bajpai, president of the BJP's UP unit, for insulting him when he tried to sit next to him, dressed as Modi, at a function. 

"Nakli Modi, stop this drama!" Bajpai had hollered. 

"After all the work I did," Pathak says.

The whole story here.

North East Couple Beaten Up For Violating "Curfew"

And this in their own rented house. Really what is this city coming to?

Image via Toothpaste For Dinner

 The couple was beaten up allegedly by their landlord's son and some goons in Munirka on Tuesday for trying to step out of their rented house at 9.30pm. The landlord, who likes to lock the main gate of the house early, was reportedly angry with the couple from Manipur when they asked for the keys. He allegedly called in youths from the neighbourhood to intimidate the victims.

Meanwhile, in my own lovely home, the fight with the neighbours over --what else?--parking space goes on and on. Luckily, the whole building hates on this one set of neighbours, so it is our collective delight to thwart their evil plans.

But I remember house hunting in the beginning and landlords feeling it was their complete right to tell me what time to come home and who I could entertain. Bitch, please. If I wanted to listen to rules, I would've stayed home with my parents. You can read more about my own woes in this old Sunday Guardian article.


The most heartbreaking bit about this story?

The couple is planning to leave Delhi soon.

From here.



(Confused? New thing! I'll be posting small news links as and when they catch my eye. I read a lot of news online and it just gets lost on my Twitter stream.)  

The Price You Pay For Being A Freelancer In India

I spend most of my adult life thinking about money. Not sex, not love, not food: money. What was charming and “artistic” in my twenties, being broke, hoarding pre-paid phone cards by giving people a missed call and making them call you back, asking richer friends to buy you drinks, is embarrassing in your thirties. I thought I had forgotten penury, being employed for the past two and half years, but poverty with all its implications was just lurking under the surface.

Image via Google/Urban Outfitters

Most of this is because a company I worked with until very recently has defaulted on most of their bills, and owes me about three months back pay. This was the money I was going to use for the next three months to write my book, this was the money I was going to use for rent.  The freelance writing I do every now and then were to serve as Cake Icing, money for the little luxuries I otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. Now that there’s no word on this money—and not for lack of trying—I am stuck trying to make ends meet with freelance work, which, as everyone who has tried this knows, takes about two or three months until you can break even.

I am living in what they call “genteel poverty”, one of the things, an article speculates that made designer L’Wren Scott kill herself last week. Genteel Poverty is rich, middle class poverty, the kind of poverty where you live in an expensive neighbourhood but can’t eat out, the kind of poverty where you put the AC on in your car but your internet gets shut off because you can’t pay the bill. More? It’s when you hear of the new restaurants from your friends and peers and can’t try them, it’s when the bottle of wine you take to a random dinner party is such a carefully calculated decision (“if I buy this bottle of Sula, even though it tastes like piss, I can afford a taxi home”) that you almost feel like picking up the half drunk bottle and taking it home with you when it’s still sitting there at the end of the night. We forget, sometimes, our privileges, how money smoothens over everything, how money makes most discussions not worth having, how money is the great liberator. Organic food? Nope, too expensive. Independent woman taking taxi home instead of depending on someone else? Nope, too expensive. Money makes it possible to make well thought out informed decisions.

Luckily, as an Indian, I am never too far away from a hand out from my parents. But, as someone who has been rowing their own boat for close to 10 years now, it’s embarrassing; it’s stupid, I can’t keep asking them for money, even though they offer it freely out of love. Genteel Poverty is too much pride, even though the option is there, which is what sets it apart from regular poverty.

In a nutshell: I am not poor, dear reader, but I am broke.

In many ways, I am better off than friends who find themselves in a similar situation. And this is because of one off-the-cuff decision I made in my first flush of riches: I would never have a credit card. Luckily for me, over the years, credit card companies don’t take well to freelance writers with no fixed income, and so even though I answered yes to the cold calls, I never got a follow up. I live on my debit card, and so, I am never in debt. My car was paid for in another flush of richness, paid for in full.

What does this sort of poverty mean? Well, for one, it means the luxury of being able to stretch out creatively has sort of left me. From the moment I wake up, I’m thinking about money, specifically the money owed me. I get excited and then heartbroken each time my text message alert goes off and it’s not from my bank. I’ve sent enough emails to qualify as a stalker, ranging from friendly to stern to desperate. This is not the first time I’ve had to beg, like literally beg for my salary, and I suspect it won’t be the last. You get a job that lets you work from home, and enjoy a certain amount of freedom, and in all likelihood, you’ll get screwed with the money.

I am broke. I could’ve not been broke had I chosen an office life. I swapped financial security for being able to work in my pajamas, and I swapped the luxury of money for the luxury of being able to get up whenever I liked.

Take the job. Or live an exciting life.

What Happened After: Julian, Dick, Anne, George & Timmy the Dog

Image courtesy Google/NiceIrishLady

(A little speculative fiction on the Famous Five grown up and living in the 21st century.)

"Blast," said Julian, looking up from his phone and at his wife, Fiona. She was young, pale and nervous, and a  "jolly good wife" as he called her to his colleagues at the bank. She kept his home immaculate, and kept his two children--Julian II and Anne--well fed and well mannered.  

Fiona trembled a bit at the tone of his voice -- not that he would ever hit her, "Julian doesn't hit girls," she told her sister -- but if he was annoyed she would feel it in the cut of meat he gave her at the dining table, in the set of his shoulders the next few days. "What is it, dear?" she ventured.

"It's my idiot cousin, Georgina. She wants us to come and help on the sale of that island she inherited."

It took Fiona a second to realise he was talking about George. George, who had transitioned into a man more than ten years ago, George who wore his cap pulled over his buzzcut curls, who had a wife, a "wife" Julian would say, contemptously, making the air quotes, and a dog breeding farm. George, the son of the famous scientist, Quentin Kirrin, who made it possible for them all to travel without worrying about bombs. Fiona had always liked George.

Once, she had ventured to her husband, "I think he prefers to be called George, dear," and Julian had risen to his full height and sneered at her across the dinner table. "Georgina is a grown woman! It was all very well when we were children, but she is a woman, and has womens work!" He settled down and chomped on his roast, reflectively, "It's evil, is what it is, Fiona. Evil. Now look at Anne. They're almost the same age, but Anne has always been a real woman."

Anne. Anne. Anne. It was always Anne. Anne who came over for weeks on end, and turned Fiona's home inside out, "nesting" she called it. "Isn't it fun to keep house?" she'd say, continuously, and cook things like boiled eggs and slap together a ham sandwich, which Julian would eat with more gusto than he ever did any of Fiona's Jamie Oliver meals.

Anne was married to a Frenchman, who was "rather queer", she'd say, tying an apron around her waist and pottering around. "You're not allowed to say queer, Aunty Anne," little Julian II had ventured, "You're supposed to say homosexual." At that, the shocked Aunty Anne had squealed, and had to be put to bed, and Julian was Very Angry Indeed.

Once, Fiona had come downstairs for a late night cup of tea, and seen, through the glass, Anne wrapped up in a rug asleep by the fire, and Julian, sitting next to her, stroking her hair.  She never mentioned it.

Dick was all right. They called him Richard now, "who's called Dick, am I right?" he'd say laughing. Sometimes, when they went out to dinner, he'd tell stories about them as children, renting caravans, solving mysteries. Richard was a ladies man, Fiona couldn't keep track of his women, but sometimes, in her darkest hours, she longed to be one of them. Julian used to look a little bit like Richard when she had married him, tall and dashing, with blonde hair and blue eyes, but now what little hair he had was combed back, and he was what her mother called "portly." He was fond of his meat and two veg, and he was fond of her and his children, but beyond that, not much else.

"Which Timmy is it now?" she said, to get him in a better mood. George bred a mixed breed race of terrier-sheepdogs, all called Timmy after his childhood pet. The Timmys, as their children called the dogs, were a set, a pack, Julian said, of large black and white creatures, all whip smart and devoted to George.

"I think her favourite is Timmy the Seventeenth," said Julian, snorting, "Though how she can have a favourite, much less distinguish between all of them is beyond me. Poor Aunt Fanny. She would have been so upset to see her lovely house overrun with those creatures."

"You used to like Timmy, though, darling, didn't you?" said Fiona, remembering stories Julian had told her about brave Timmy, smart Timmy, Timmy getting him out of trouble. Julian snorted again, and waved his empty glass at her. He wasn't a drinker, that was a blessing, but he liked two "snifters" of Scotch on particularly trying days. This was clearly going to be a Two Snifter Evening.

"We wouldn't have needed that dog if only the adults didn't keep leaving us alone," he said, "My god, Fiona, we wouldn't leave Little Anne and Young Ju alone for two hours let alone two days. By themselves! On a caravan! At the mercy of criminals and kidnappers!"

"You solved crimes, dear," said Fiona, remembering a story Richard had told her about George getting bundled up into a car and taken away, and how Richard and Julian had rushed to her rescue. "Did you go too, Anne?" asked Fiona, politely, only because Anne was there too, that evening, and Anne had said, "Oh no, it was no place for a girl" and Julian had smiled at her approvingly.

"For the benefit of Georgina and Richard. They did like the idea of solving crimes, so I indulged them." Julian was quiet for so long, that Fiona thought he had fallen asleep, and went about the room putting out lights and clearing away glasses. Finally, he spoke out of the gloom, and gave her a start.

"So, Kirrin Island is for sale. Well, well."

***

George stood with his five Timmys at the edge of Kirrin town, gazing out at the island. It used to belong to his mother, and her mother before her. When George had transitioned at first, his mother had built him a cottage on the island to live on, and rowed over every day with sandwiches and root beer, until George reminded her that he was now 25, and could handle something a bit stronger. The next time, his mother brought over a bottle of wine, and George had cooked, and they had watched the sun set over the ocean. After George's father died, everything had been peaceful for him and his mother, no more fights, no more arguments, and his mother celebrated his new identity. "You've always been unhappy as you were, darling."

George missed his mother every day.

Over from the island, the sound of construction increased. Someone was using a power drill, and George could just make out the shapes of the holiday rentals come up.

"I can't believe Julian would do that!" Emily had exclaimed when they first heard of Julian's plans to redevelop Kirrin Island into a "family friendly" resort, complete with golf course and water activities. "He's going to ruin everything, the prat. I know he's disgusting now, but he used to share a childhood with you, George."

"Ju's all right," George said, gruffly. No one was allowed to insult his family, not even his wife. Even if Julian did insist on saying "Georgina" each time they met, even if Julian's wife trembled each time he spoke, like he was going to smack her or something, even if George had seen Julian and Anne in the moonlight, with Anne's face tipped up to his, and Julian's mouth in her hair.

"It'll be okay, won't it, Timmy?" George asked his dogs, and as one, they turned to him, tails wagging, tongues hanging out. "That's what I thought," he said, laughing, "Best dogs in the world, aren't you?"

As they walked home, George saw Emily emerge from the cottage and come running down the lane towards him, waving her cellphone. "George!" she shouted, "You'll never believe what that dick has done now!"

The Timmys bounded away from George and towards Emily, and distractedly, she patted them, all the while brandishing her phone at George.

He took the phone from her and saw an ad in her email.

Now taking pre-bookings! Britain's only FAMILY resort with FAMILY values!

THE FAMOUS FIVE ISLAND!

YOU'VE READ THE STORIES!

NOW RUN BY AN ORIGINAL FAMOUS FIVE MEMBER!

George sat down quite heavily. "Oh god," he said. 

Outside, the lorries carrying bricks to the island rumbled past. 

eM’s Spring Wedding Lessons for the Wedding Attendee

Tis the season to get married,

Fa la la la la la la,

All around me brides are harried,

Fa la la la la la la,

Punjabi music fills the air

Fa la la la la la la,

Five drinks down, and I no longer care,

FA LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAAAAA.

So, January, February, March. Three months, four almost back-to-back weddings. This was an unusual year for me, I think I've last done so many weddings in a row at the end of my twenties, when everyone was looking around themselves frantically and thinking, "You'll do!" Then there was a breather, with one to no invites, and then suddenly, the second wave.

The second wave hits when you think your days of wedding revelry are behind you. Second Wavers tend to have met in their 30s, and have fixed ideas about the kind of wedding they want. The Second Wave couples tend to be relaxed about most of the nitty gritty, not exhausting themselves with too much tamasha, an eye for the littler details, no doubt picked up from years of attending weddings themselves. Marriages of the Second Wave are usually attended by the Perpetually Single, the About To Get Married Soons and the New Parents. Some of the Second Wave have very fixed ideas about how they want to do the ceremony, the others are more go with the flow about it.

I also attended the wedding of another wave that's going to be rolling in soon enough: Your Friend's Younger Sibling. Yes, the child that followed you and your friend around, the teen you passed on life lessons to, the closest thing you had to your own younger siblings are now (sniff) all grown up.

Lessons I have learned from weddings:

1) Find your people: An average Indian wedding lasts about three days. You need to identify your "group," because you will be seeing these people a LOT. Spend the whole first Young People's Gathering or whatever making friends, so you're not awkwardly standing around bobbing your head to the music all alone.
 

2) Find your drink: Cold = rum, whiskey. Hot = beer, cocktail. I mixed wine and lived to regret it. Big mistake, since weddings tend to run evening-morning-evening, so you need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed the next day.

3) Phone battery is crucial: Also, ask the bride and groom for their Instagram hashtag. What do you mean they don't have an Instagram hashtag? They need one to collect all the photos.

4) OH MY GOD COMFORTABLE SHOES AND A WARM THING BECAUSE IF YOU AREN'T WARM AND NON-SHOE-BITEY THEN THE WORLD IS A CRUEL PLACE ESPECIALLY IN CHHATTARPUR.

5) Fuck the fancy clothes: Listen, have fun with your fashion choices. If you like your long dress, wear the goddamn long dress and don't worry that everyone else will be in a sari and dripping with gold. Are you a dripping in gold kinda person? You are not.

6) Identify your wedding LOVAH: Assuming you are single. The Good Thing is a great wedding date, but he also gets a home-free pass from me, because poor thing didn't sign up for Delhi Social Season when he signed up for me, so he gets to stay home for the second thing or the third thing. (He does like the food though.) But from watching single friends, you'll have one boy/girl you'll gravitate towards, and then set it up and be a Flirt Monster, except make sure he's not coming to the next wedding you have to go to, because awkward! By the way, I did this once, several years ago, and THEN, after three days of CAREFUL setting up, the boy turned up with a DATE for the reception. So there's that.

UPDATE WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM FRIENDS

7) Wedding snacks & wedding food: The snacks are usually what will fill you up and keep you. Identify the caterer as soon as you can, are they better for a particular kind of cuisine? Most wedding hosts like to have a variety of snacks on hand to fulfil the needs of all their guests, but as a special snowflake, and one who's read this list, you know to zero in on the best item. Eat that item. Ignore all rest.

8) Plan for downtime: There might be a week to four days between each wedding (I had two weeks off before the last one), and then you're going to want to catch up with all your friends, as well as spend a few days just in your pajamas. Try and do both or by the time the next one comes around, you'll be ex-haus-ted. No one likes a tired bunny, plus you need the same level of enthusiasm for each wedding or else it wouldn't be fair.

Have any more thoughts and suggestions? Leave them in the comments!

I’m Falling In Love Again: But This Time, It’s With Delhi

Last night I dreamt I was in Bandra again.  

The pigeons were coocoor-cooing on the AC, the shafts of sunlight were playing across the room, and the roar of young men in their fathers’ cars were zipping past on the main road. Bandra woke up early, and the crows were the first, you could tell it was morning when they started to caw, and my doorbell was a busy, insistent buzz, people wanting to get started. 


“I don’t feel like leaving Delhi,” said my good friend Priyadarshini to me at a party the other day. Like me, Priya is bicitial, a term I coined for a person who belongs to two places, has two flats, and two sets of friends. We bounce back and forth, and everywhere we go, people ask us a variation of the same question: so where are you these days? (“Here,” I want to say, “I’m here.”) Priya and I bonded over unbelonging, and there’s always a spring in our step the day before we leave one city for another. Except this time.


Unexpectedly, I have found myself falling in love with Delhi. It’s been three—maybe four—years since I left my favourite suburb to move back “home,” a construct I was so vague about. What is home? I answer in flippancies; home is where your shoes are. Some days, over the past few years, I find myself wondering why I ever left, why leave swathes of sea and perfect blue skies, why leave traffic and chaos and life for a Lifestyle? Am I not too young for a lifestyle? Is this old age? I have forgotten so much: I can’t take an auto, I can’t walk without double checking over my shoulder, I can’t go to a party, and be as flaky as I feel like. Delhi has absorbed me again, but Delhi has made me whole.

~Old Wives' Tales~

Delhi has been everything Delhi always is — an ice cold demon, an unsafe purgatory, filled with fakes and liars and scoundrels, and yet, and yet, it’s slipped its needle into my vein and I want it, I want more Delhi, I want the house parties, and the Meru/Ola/Uber cabs. I want the blast-of-unexpected-warmth winter sunshine. I want to drive my car up flyovers and down them, with music on the stereo. I want the marble floors of my apartment, and how the city can be so quiet after 8 pm, if you have nothing on that evening. The separation of my social life from my personal one.

Absurdly, even though I fight it in my head, Delhi has started to feel safer. 


Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

 

~United we stand~

It was December, that awful, awful December, that everyone still speaks of in hushed tones and capital letters, that made the city a real thing for me again. It felt like we stood together shoulder-to-shoulder and demanded more things, and the city listened to us. It was after that the Aam Aadmi Party came up, and we began to reclaim our streets even more. For the first time in a long time, the city was ours again, not belonging to the nameless, faceless demons that roamed it. 

Say what you will about the AAP (and there is lots to say) but it brought the city together in a way no political party has been able to, by courting the upper middle class and the lower middle class, people who lived in posh neighbourhoods and the people who lived in the slums surrounding them.  Us, the Great Apolitical, the people who would rather chat about what was new on a trending TV show than police brutality in a neighbouring state, began to follow the news for the first time. A funny thing happens when you begin to read the news regularly—at first it’s all a blur, so boring, who cares, and then suddenly, things begin to jump out at you, you feel stirred by a report, even if it is bland and press copy, written at the last minute by a harried reporter, and before you know it, you’re having an argument with someone at a party, and actually holding your own. It’s incredibly empowering.


But what’s changed about Delhi isn’t just because of the AAP and regular news reading. It’s subtle, it’s shifting, but all at once, it seems as though the country’s (and sometimes the world’s) best thinkers and doers are right here. You go to a gathering, you ask politely, “What do you do?” and you’re taken off chasing a conversation thread: discussing conservation, the local gun shop, the right kind of Mexican food, backpacking in Peru, maybe even what Arnab Goswami would be like in bed. 

 ~When It Happens~

I have spent so long resisting Delhi, actually, wait that’s not true, I waited and waited for the *click* to go off in my chest, the moment of tripping and falling and feelings of great glorious well being to wash over you. I had those moments in Bombay often, I am in a rickshaw on the flyover that connects the Western Expess highway to Bandra West, I watch the sea, I am filled with sepia-tinted love. 


In Delhi, it felt more like an arranged marriage, I made the right noises, I went through the motions, but it was faking it. And maybe, much like an arranged marriage, my family knew best, and I rise next to my husband, worn and fat and faded from four years of marriage and I gaze down at his sleeping face for a bit, and he rolls over in his sleep and smiles, and I realise that I love him.