Different folks, different Delhis

Thu, Jul 24 01:40 AM

This week, I stand behind to present a Dilli of those Delhiwallas who spent at least some part of their lives in the Capital but no longer reside here. Their Delhi tells us more about themselves than the city itself.

My friend Patrick is an American diplomat who lived here for three years before moving back to Washington DC. Recently, he sent me an e-mail describing the things he misses about the city. Patrick said, "I miss saying hello to the barber who set up shop outside my apartment near Mandi House.

I miss having clothing altered for $1. I miss the kebabs.

I miss driving down the Rajpath. I miss being treated like any other rider of DTC buses.

" Patrick's Delhi is different from my Dilli. It must have given him kicks to go unnoticed in a bus with his white skin; for me that sort of anonymity is taken for granted.

However, Harsha, a snobbish Delhiwalla-turned-Londoner, has no romantic sensibilities. He dismissed Delhi in just one line: "I miss the servants.

" Married to an Indian, German national Daniela Schwarz lived in the city for a year, and her experiences are more like any Delhi woman's. "I miss the abuses that ring in your ear wherever you go," she wrote to me in an e-mail from a small German town called Glauchau.

"I'd probably not miss the trail of fans that follows me everywhere, especially the scrubby male ones asking for dates." However, I expected seemingly loyal Delhiwalli Padmini Vaidyanathan, a New York University student, to pine for PVRs, aloo-papri chaat and Sarojini Nagar market, but - no! After spending 23 years in Delhi, Padmini just misses that scary sensation of "having no rights as a pedestrian".

Flattering indeed! Atish Dipankar, who studied in IIT Delhi and now works in Bangalore, is kinder. "I miss AIIMS ka parantha, Gurgaon malls, wide roads, winters, foggy mornings and having chai in those mornings.

" But the icing on the cake, and the cherries, the crust, the batter and everything else goes to bitchy Thomas, a dear American buddy who is relocating to London next month. Thomas is 'ecstatic' about seeing the back of Delhi.

He cribs that this city has nothing but ruins: "Once I leave Delhi, I will miss the monuments and also monuments and then I will miss the monuments some more and yes, of course, there are monuments and monuments too and beside the monuments I will also miss the monuments." Not funny.

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