of djinns and private ghosts

What do you do when you have no work? When everything is in this transient phase of joblessness and when one phase is too dear to let go and the other is too exciting to keep away? When counting sheep is not an option as the total population has been counted and recounted to be exactly 1,065,024? When green ambassadors and red mail vans are hard to come by?

You can try going back to something that you loved doing? Or try your hand at something you hated with a little hope that things might change? For me, I guess fate decided on the latter. And as a result, I tried my hand at Delhi.

Delhi has always been known to be one of the most rude cities in India. Where the power of the South Block predominates over the rationality of argument. Where you can get by only if you're apologetic about your existence or have the backing of some major Nehru-capped fat old man. Where the show of wealth assumes vulgar proportions and you hear rumors of people buying their first Merc before their first piece of furniture. Where it is impossible to avoid passing glances unless you're in South-Ex or in a car.

But for long, most of us in the East, the West and the South have dismissed Delhi by looking at only one side of the society. Delhi is much more than single-culture cities like Bombay or Calcutta. And while the confluence of cultures has both good and bad aspects, we decided to look at the underbelly before looking at the shiny fur.

There are very few cities which have a story lurking around every corner, behind every dilapidated gateway of past grandeur, in the khoya mixed with your gajar ka halwa, in old marketplaces and new extensions. Delhi is very unique in itself and in a way impossible for any other city unless it is taken over by Sher Shah Suri, the Mughals and the British in the same order for the respective periods of time.

Most cities have their own culture - in the watering holes and home made food - that differentiate them from the other. While Bombay smells of privacy and the fact that there is no one to question you, Calcutta tastes of fish and political activism and Bangalore speaks of places that you grow more loyal to than your wife or your girl.

But Delhi is probably the only city where the culture flows from every aspect of life - the climate, the jalebis, the aloo paranthas, the lutyens buildings, the maroon mercs, the civil lines, the havelis-converted-into-marketplaces and the sheesh-mahals-converted-into-godowns. It is difficult to define the culture. But you can taste it from everything that is happening around. Its like having a Djinn present around you all the time. You don't know it is there. But you sense it whenever you do something.

But, at the end of it all, you do need the right company for Delhi. For me, I was lucky to have company that would make me forget about the underbellies of life and think of only blue skies and poppy fields. To appreciate some place, it is important to ignore the darker aspects of it. I was lucky to be too happy being with someone to actually think about whats wrong with the city. There was much more for me in the city once I forgot my presumptions. Love. Life. Red Sandstone. And Mughal domes co-existing with Lutyens architecture. Thats Delhi for me.