Exodus

Cities are like people.No matter how screwed our perceptions of it, given enough time(that unequivocal leveler), it grows on you. You begin to see why it is what it is. What promises it had to offer;how unique are its fingerprints. I have had the misfortune of spending very little time in a city I had loved to explore;riding on a 350cc muscle-bound magic carpet,courtesy of the Enfield group;playing back in my mind again and again like the last drops off a leaf that just dont seem to end.
Delhi...A mammoth cauldron of people,cultures,lifestyles,food,greenery,the romanticism of history,the promise of a utopia.Shanty-coloured rooftops that I watched slovenly during long evening walks,watching the sun remove its makeup gracefully and serenely as it set itself to another few hours of unwinding.So many dull-coloured buildings.Blank-painted tanks.Pipes,at various stages of corrosion.Paan-stains.Fiery orange,tattered flags,tied to unseemly poles.Chimneys,blackened with the effort of preparing the inhabitant's meals.Pigeons and kites,hammering out diplomacies in their efforts to forage the day's sustenance.Dishes,by the hundreds,Tata Sky and Dish TV,testimony to the millions of eyeballs dwelling below them.Hoardings,half-painted,almost sagely comical.
Oh Delhi,what have I done to earn your wrath.That I am not permitted by destiny to share my life with you.Who's prayer do you listen to,that takes me far from you whenever I have seek to clasp you tight to my bosom?The banian-clad jawans, who accompany me in my running sessions?The bus-drivers?who wash themselves beneath malnourished taps,beside their giant petrol-guzzling paymasters?The ladies at the park?who undertake peculiar yogic exercises and are more prone to watching physical effort than participation?the chauffeurs?who keep their employer's cars spotlessly free of the muck that they lick on their way to workplaces?the milkman?who sadly nods his head at my sweaty shirt and makes an excuse a day for arriving progressively late for delivery?the goli-soda-waala?who's always grinning and snickering at my fancy watch and and shiny belt?or was it the paan-fucked mouthings off the autowaala?
I'll never know.Not a day goes by that I dont pine for a whiff of this beautiful city.With a desperate stare,I stretch my neck forward as far as possible,standing at the trains door;the wind,flowing in my hair;the blurring city horizon,snatching away yet another piece of my heart,forever;the tracks turning away to block my sight.