Dilli ki Naan-Sense

While walking on the concrete path surrounded by a sea of green formed by leaves and the red and blue and green of the sweets-selling shops and the gol gappa vendor, the curious aroma of Central Delhi - incense mixed with tobacco and wet grass - awoke my senses. A story rose from each variation, from each pedestrian passing by, from the people selling paan to the ones saturating the air with their prayers to Allah. Homesickness took birth inside me before I had left.

Dilli ki Naan-Sense is a fitting term for the magic that courses through the veins of this city - a city that demands a love you can explain only once you are going to leave. I originally used this term as the name for a food blog I initiated with three of my friends, one which never took off. Even though this post isn't about food (as pointed to by "naan"), I found the term befitting since you'll hear many people in Delhi pronouncing "non" as "naan".

Why am I writing about this city just weeks before I am about to leave? I never appreciated before the collective story its sounds speak, nor did I acknowledge how much I had gotten used to the noise of the traffic, to the vendors announcing their wares, to the many people filled in a few square metres. Not until I moved to Gurgaon, another city bordering Delhi, which is bustling but not so much as West Delhi where I resided before. The relative quiet calls me to revisit Delhi, or Dilli as I prefer to call it, to board the Metro once again and see for myself the magnitude of human life.

The smog obscures what is beautiful. While the intense competition that exists due to the high population might be too stressful sometimes, deep beneath everyone supports each other, intentionally or unintentionally, and life moves forward. Behind a regular schedule, a regular job, is the feeling that Dilli is our home. That feeling of constancy that bores us one day fights for survival the next when it is being defeated by change.

Before I leave, I might write a lot about what fascinates me about my home, owing to the increased observation of my surroundings triggered by the knowledge that my time here is limited. Everything seems beautiful before the end, before change grasps you and all you have left are memories.