Delhi

To me, Delhi is the sound of fruit vendors calling in the morning, the cacophony of horns honking, sometimes from necessity and sometimes just to fit in (or so it seems). The voices of auto wallahs and rickshaw drivers can barely be heard bargaining over the din of traffic. 

Delhi is the children who sing outside my window during their early morning playtime at school, and their counterparts who touch my knee and beg for change as I sit in an auto at the stoplight. They laugh as they run between the cars but the sound is different from the laughter that interrupts the counting songs at the school behind my house. This sound is punctuated by traffic and averted eyes,  the bark of dogs and many times gentle but eventually clipped rebukes in Hindi. This is the city marked by a deep and growing form of poverty, even as the laughter continues. 

Delhi is the prayers of the Sufis at Nizamuddin, taking the form of an always changing song with rules that only those within the music can understand. We watch but cannot contribute. It's the chants and music at temple as I make my way home, the call to prayer, the sound of drums beating at a Sikh festival. The diversity of Delhi echoes through the smog. 

The smells are everywhere and quick to change, the delicious smell of street food buried almost instantly under the public convenience stall that no matter how many times I pass still takes me by surprise. At first I was overwhelmed but now I am inside the city, largely unaware of the pungent scents that no doubt cling to my clothes. 

Delhi is a street that is never empty, the push and pull and sway of masses of people getting on and off the metro, a line at the bus stop, a series of competing hands flagging an auto.  It overflows.

The many ruins of the great cities that preceded this 21st century Delhi are surrounded by chain coffee stores or apartment buildings. Sometimes they share space with an ever-growing rubbish pile that has been consigned to one corner of the sprawling old stones, until it cannot be contained any longer. That corner marries the past to this present, just as the clothes hanging from what used to be mosques and madrasas tell the story of these spaces in a new context. 

Delhi is warm butter naan, paneer any way I can get it, an orange from the corner stand, sweet and spicy and sometimes overwhelming. 

Delhi is myriad. Maybe this is the result of my life in the states, a sign of my own life in small towns or small cities in the South, but I believe it's more than that. Delhi makes an impression.