I hate that cologne - but......for now, my hair positively reeks of it - and in this moment, I'm happy. :-)
Monday, September 26, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Lazy Lazy Sunday
For once, I woke up feeling peaceful - not particularly rested though, mind you, since as always I'd slept only with the advent of dawn, but peaceful nevertheless. Maybe it's because I made my own dinner last night - after I don't know how many weekends worth (5 years maybe) of takeout, I finally ate a home cooked meal last night. Or maybe, it's the pensiveness that often accompanies reading anything by William Dalrymple - I finished his marvelous ' City of Djinns' for the second time last night. Predictably enough, I feel like trawling through Delhi's much touted though sadly neglected tourist spots - Qutab Minar, Red Fort, Lodhi Gardens, Humayun's Tomb et al.
But then I've always loved this about Delhi - scratch away the filth and grime and filter out the din of clamoring Punjabis and shrieking Jats and Gujjar - and at a turn and a step, you will see glimpses of a much refined age - hear the tinkle of laughter and bells on a nautch girl's anklets, smell the sweet jasmine scent off a vine planted it seems aeons ago - or maybe even hear the clash of swords. This city has seen birth and death and destruction and rebirth - this city is a phoenix - it rises from its ashes - vibrant and new - although, this time it may just have met its match in its current inhabitants. Amidst the hustle and bustle of gleaming glass fronted facades and the sound of mall rats scurrying away to wherever the next Dior or Gucci store opens, there are still, quiet times and a softness in the twilight. This is the City of my birth - it exasperates me to no end but at the end of it, its fascinating sense of the old and the arcane, its finely strung balance between the sacred and the profane (and both abound withing the warrens and recesses of the city), its secrets hidden out in the open, the esoteric right in the face for all to see - its heady bouquet of the long gone, the has been and the yet to come - yes I love Delhi.
But then I've always loved this about Delhi - scratch away the filth and grime and filter out the din of clamoring Punjabis and shrieking Jats and Gujjar - and at a turn and a step, you will see glimpses of a much refined age - hear the tinkle of laughter and bells on a nautch girl's anklets, smell the sweet jasmine scent off a vine planted it seems aeons ago - or maybe even hear the clash of swords. This city has seen birth and death and destruction and rebirth - this city is a phoenix - it rises from its ashes - vibrant and new - although, this time it may just have met its match in its current inhabitants. Amidst the hustle and bustle of gleaming glass fronted facades and the sound of mall rats scurrying away to wherever the next Dior or Gucci store opens, there are still, quiet times and a softness in the twilight. This is the City of my birth - it exasperates me to no end but at the end of it, its fascinating sense of the old and the arcane, its finely strung balance between the sacred and the profane (and both abound withing the warrens and recesses of the city), its secrets hidden out in the open, the esoteric right in the face for all to see - its heady bouquet of the long gone, the has been and the yet to come - yes I love Delhi.
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