Some people speak of Delhi with such disdain, and yet her name has never felt like a dirty word in my mouth.
Delhi is an extreme place, and I am a tempered person. But, people and places are never stagnant. When I first arrived, I didn’t see myself as someone who needed to greatly change in order to feel comfortable here. Yet, slowly the directness of local Delhiites started to escape from my own lips, and I found myself quietly demanding space in a way I never had before. Adapting to Delhi’s disposition towards the extreme handed me the map to explore the farthest corners of myself. Standing in an entirely new context, my perception of who I am never could have remained the same from this vantage point.
Arriving in the heat of October, I had a fixed gaze on the next immediate responsibility. Each time I dealt with one task, another would spring up. This constant balancing act did not allow me the space to stop and appreciate the city for that specific moment in time. I didn’t realize how much her adornments would change over the next ten months even while the fact of her beauty remained unquestioned for me. Once I did have time for reflection, this unshakeable truth allowed me to see new parts of her with flourishing understanding. Already, I was no longer the same person as when we met, and neither was she.
From the very first moment I set foot in Delhi, the scene was never mine to set. For months, my starry-eyed misunderstanding of how much control I held over the circumstances kept me sane. All of life was now controlled by Delhi’s temperamental spirit and fluctuating constitution, and I didn’t realize how much this was true until I foolishly attempted to go against the flow.
As her and I would both have our mood swings, this would allow us to see further into each other’s cores. When she lashed out through an unexpected deluge in April, I became an empty edifice struggling to leave bed. When her joy couldn’t be contained, fireworks lit up the sky. I watched from my balcony and felt included in the festivities. When I laughed too hard at a Mughal restaurant, my giggles became contagious to a baby sitting a table over. Constantly in tandem with each other, we affected one another more than we both realized.
She has pushed me to the most extreme points, seeing me balance countless obligations while navigating her varied streets. Yet, even when the gullies are flooded, I am welcomed home by the security guard at my society offering a warm smile. I had initially clung to my place in a desperate grab for stability before slowly feeling the courage to explore more and more. Each day, I came to realize it is not so difficult to navigate. I can love and appreciate this extreme, while knowing that it’s not the place I’ll find a permanent home. I can recognize that my body yearns for a different atmosphere while acknowledging what has been given to me here.
My feelings on the extremes of the city are constantly vacillating. Appropriately, I sometimes hate these extremes, and other times I love them. Reacting with as much volatility as the cause of the emotion, it reminds me that the truth has multiple angles. The extremities I once found overwhelming, I now take as normal. Though sometimes, there are still days when I feel raw, and an overfilled metro strikes me the wrong way. It is in those moments that I am disheartened, feeling like it is my first day again. Yet, my ability to bounce back reminds me that it is not and I now have greater resolve than the afternoon I landed.
Delhi is a volatile city, and the only constant is that people keep telling me that the equivalent of one day here is like smoking a certain number of cigarettes. Even this one certainty is constantly in a state of aberration. Over time, I felt like I could tell how someone feels about the city based on the number they would give me. If someone told me it’s only the equivalent of smoking three cigarettes a day, I would know they see Delhi with the same sentiment as me. If they say thirty or more, they may be closer to the truth, but I don’t want to hear the underlying acerbity in their words.
At first this felt like a reasonable price to pay. I thought it was fair that in order to live in one of the most exciting cities in the world, I would exchange a few of my elderly years for a dynasty of life in ten months. For how much life is lived everyday on these streets, I thought I didn’t even need to negotiate. Although I didn’t have any bargaining power anyway, I was already happy with the initial rate and remained ignorant to my own inaptitude. This was the naive optimism that was needed to initially forgive Delhi’s fatal flaws and then stay here long enough to truly fall in love with the city.
Ten months is enough time to properly love a place, not just to become infatuated by it. It is no longer a fleeting whirlwind romance but rather a matured relationship that had the chance to live until its natural end. This timeline gave me a chance to see the less desirable parts, but then also take the time to understand what makes them so. These were puzzle pieces that I only connected because I had dedicated myself to a lasting commitment.
Before I knew exactly why I was placed here, she kept being herself. I didn’t know why I was so charmed by her, but she kept giving every part of herself. In the beginning, I couldn’t articulate the way the air introduced a heaviness into my lungs I had never felt before, but I also couldn’t exactly express the excitement that her endless passageways filled me with. I now see how the gyrus of all the neighborhoods and colonies give her an ever present knowledge of the happenings within her confines.
I’ve come to find out that it’s not a simple exchange of a few years. It takes more than just offering a few moments from my retirement. It’s a hardening and a growing skepticism. It’s a version of myself that I will only be here, and when I return home, I hope I will shed some of the armor needed to thrive in such a populated city. When I move from my apartment, I will also leave a piece of my heart in Delhi. One that can never be retrieved even if I were to return back to the exact coordinates where I’ve spent so much time. Yet, even if I knew this beforehand, I would still come to Delhi.
I find it hard to grasp her complex history. The way that she continues living despite having witnessed centuries of pain, without ever having a chance to rest. The years just keep piling on, and we continue asking more and more of her. The stress that she carries in her bones feels natural, and somehow she carries it with grace. I’ve always liked the notion that Delhi doesn’t belong to anyone, therefore, she belongs to everyone. I’m astounded by the history of migration and the repeated story of found home. In that way, I’ve never met a city quite like Delhi before.
She has seen me in this particular year, growing from twenty-four to twenty-five. How young and inexperienced that age seems in comparison to a city so weathered and mature. Her landscape always served as a beautiful background for this time of my life, her minarets and gardens going back and forth between tough love and calm refuge. While circumstances changed, her personality has remained true. This is the essence of my love. She has always been honest and herself and has never pretended to be anything she is not.
Creating a home where you are is a skillful art, and it is not something I ever mastered here. I would catch fleeting moments and feel them so strongly when these glimmers passed through. However, the seeds refused to take root. The sprouts could survive for a fleeting moment but not enough to find their permanent home. Home has always been more than a physical location, and I have found lifelong family in Delhi. Yet whenever “This Must Be The Place” by Talking Heads came on, I always felt an inexplicable urge to skip it. My time in Delhi has always felt like a youthful relationship. It is beautiful and exciting and each phase is uniquely wonderful, but it carries an inherent ephemerality.
It took me a while to accept that some relationships can be temporary. Age has shown me that trying to artificially keep alive relationships that have run their course is only an illusion meant to provide temporary relief. Acknowledging the truth of Delhi and I’s ten months together allows me to see the time with a realistic love, rather than a delusional hope.
Even when I’m fighting with my roommates, I will choose to believe that the light by the door was left on for me. I will think that they knew I was out late, and they offered a lantern to make the final steps from the door to my room peaceful. I’ll experience it like a warm hug from a well-meaning passerby, ensuring the path forward is lit. When perceiving the accidental abuse to the electric bill as a trail of breadcrumbs to ensure my safe passage home, I will ascribe my own love to their silence. When I go to bed after turning the light out, I’ll believe that Delhi is proud of me and how I’ve grown since first meeting her. No matter where I lay my head, I’ll continue to dream of her.
