Mastermind's Capital

Mon, Jul 14 12:55 AM

I have the sanskar of a certain kind of Dilliwalla - South Delhi raised, North Campus educated, bred in theatres and coffee houses, addicted to addebaazi, fed with Dilli ke swaad and aab o hawa.

I married here, became a parent here.

But for the past two years I've mostly been living in Mumbai, the city of my childhood, and now my karmabhoomi. While I enjoy Mumabi's creative energy, I'm at odds with its overwhelmingly commercial mindset.

For the sky, space, seasons and trees; for a sense of history, an awareness of the nation and world beyond; for yaar dosti.

I head for home in Dilli.

My first home, in the early 60's, was in Defence Colony. It was a neighbourhood of low rise kothis, and I remember cycling for hours through its bylanes.

During power cuts, we would sleep out in the chhat but would wake up under a kambal in the morning chill. In winters, we would exhale mouthfuls of mist and sit around a bonfire.

Hitch hiking was the cool way to travel Delhi's long distances. There was no sleek metro shimmying underground through Old Delhi.

Instead, phat-phats, powered by ageing Harley Davidsons, chugged back and forth doing the Red Fort-Regal beat. And then I entered St.

Stephen's. On the one hand there was revolution, radicalism and youth power, and on the other there was psychedelia, make-love-not-war, and flower power.

You walked the talk between Che Guevara and Jim Morrison. Street theatre came into its own and there was a lot of fiery socialism in the arts.

It was also a time of free flowing Woodstock type rock folk events. The sweet smell of hash seemed everywhere, while an intrepid few tripped on acid, and others on Mandrax meandered in a moronic daze.

I later shacked up in an asbestos-roofed barsati in Defence Colony. Then in a garage.

A single room annexe with a little kitchenette was our whole and sole home when Anita and I married 8 years after we met. We soon moved south to Saket, which was home when our children were born, pushing further out at Vasant Kunj before we finally settled at Sainik Farms.

It's an unpretentious garden home built by an architect friend which distills the best of Delhi for me. There's a big, lovely peepal tree dominating the garden.

It is green everywhere. Fruits and flowers, and bushes full of birds.

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