Dunk in Delhi

Imagine this: You're in the middle of a narrow, tightly packed road. You’re lost. Somehow you've overflown from walking on the sidewalks, to walking right in the middle of the road. But you still can't help but NOT feel odd about this at all, because you, you my friend, are not the only one there. There are so many people there all around you, that you start to think, no you start to believe, that THAT IS the normal path to tread upon. Before you could get a chance to ponder upon that for even a second longer, you realize that you've unknowingly already taken your next step and then the next and the next. You feel like you might just be a pebble in the river going wherever the powerful stream that's engulfed you takes. Cars, motorbikes honk right behind you and rickshaw (cart) pullers yell next to you, every now and then, to make way for themselves on the same road. Sounds adverse? Nah! Because all of you seem to somehow already have a mutual understanding about how to navigate swiftly through the mayhem in tandem –and by god’s grace, it works!

You lift your head up out of the crowd, and see ancient ruins of buildings towering upon you from both sides of the path. There seems to be a certain magical old world charm to those buildings, their wear and tear indicating how proudly they’ve been passed down from one generation to another, all the while protecting hundreds of years of culture, legacy and heritage hidden deep within the crevices of each one of those.

Allured you keep prodding forward. You come across this alleyway, which is apparently a market for almost anything you could wish to buy, and you’re just absolutely blown away. Your sight, smell, hearing senses ambushed by it all together! You look around to see people in some of the most blindingly bright colored traditional Indian dresses, leveraging some especially intricate hand gestures to hackle their way in to buying even brighter clothing. These colorful clothes to the gloomy grey colored alleyway, what the spirit of a soulful rainbow powerfully cutting through a dingy overcast of clouds.

Right then, a sudden whiff of something especially strong hits you. It’s hard to decipher, but you suspect its well ground spices because you recognize a few familiar undertones, and also the big give - they’re, as is characteristic of strong Indian spices, making one sneeze. One of the consecutive sneezes of yours makes you loose your balance a little, only to right then be nudged NOT ever so slightly by a passerby to your right, so now your entire body faces a line of street food vendors. Oh oh you’ve unintentionally made eye contact, and even dared to turn the corner of your lips up a little in an awkward smile, which means that you’re now the designated next customer, whether you like it or not. “One bag of roasted spicy chips for only 20 bucks. Top quality and cheapest price, I guarantee. Take it. Take it!!” they call out with the utmost enthusiasm. Your awkward smile returns and you nod your head into a little no and try to sneak away in another direction, but it seems to be a little too late for that. Multiple other vendors have now noticed you and reduced your chances of leaving empty handed to almost null. But you’re determined to not surrender so easily. Your steps keep moving you farther from the influx of vendors with ever-increasing urgency, but you are still unsuccessful in escaping the vendors echoing voices, which with every consecutive word fade ever so slightly. “Ok ok take 2 bags for 20” roaring loud echo. “Ok 2 bags for 5, special deal just for you!!” a more faded echo. “Hellooo… listen up….ok, what’s your best price?” an almost mute distant call now.

Determined, you walk increasingly faster and faster until you finally reach the end of the alley and turn the corner, and phew, you take a sigh of relief. You’re saved or so you thought. You now find yourself in the midst of an enormous group of people who’ve ardently gathered to watch religious plays performed on a little makeshift stage right in the middle of the road. The performers dressed up as mythical creatures dance beautifully to depict ancient tales, leaving spectators spell bound. So much so that most of them stay fixated to the performance, all the while benumbedly sitting on the bare ground, the heat of which could be no less than that of the molten fires of the underworld. Such seems to be the unbelievable, unshakeable (quite literally here!) strength of their devotion. There also seems to be a major divide in the intrinsic nature of these religious spectators – some are very benignly making intricate color powder paintings on the ground as a token of their doting worship, while the more daring ones are making 60 feet tall paper statues of evil demons to merciless burn in fire while they spew the wrath of their religious sermons.

On one end of the alley you have these religious sermons going and on the opposite you have a…a what?...a Mango fest going, because well, why not? Seems apt given the strength of devotion to both those, religion and mangoes, could very well just be equivalent in us Indians.

Two blocks down the road there is also, of all things possible, a dance festival going on, and you know that because you can hear the powerful sing alongs to famous songs right from where you’re standing, calling out to you like a bewitching siren to leave your worries behind and just join in, if for nothing else then at least the chorus. Come on, we know you’ve got this!

You walk a little farther up only to be transported to the world of yin and yan. You see stark extremes in confounding unison all around – some of the fanciest hotels laden with the most exotic flowers towering up to the skies from the middle of a block full of ancient ruin buildings, the fortunate stylishly entering to eat in some of the poshest restaurants that are very strategically placed right in front of those sitting on the streets to eat what they could beg, hundreds of spectators spending thousands of bucks to enjoy a game of cricket in the grandest stadium possible while others stand right in front of the gate of the very same stadium to sell cotton candy & earn enough to afford a one time meal for the day – the usual divide of the haves and have nots!

Overwhelmed by the sights, you shut your eyes for a second, expecting a little moment of solace, but your stubborn brain insists on meticulously overthinking about the environment you’re in, and just wouldn’t let that be. This place is well, different -- there’s an overload of color, smells, noises, and probably a billion too many people here. There doesn’t seem to be much order or organization to anything – dance festivals just two blocks away from religious gatherings, mind-boggling! And yet there’s a certain beauty in this maddening chaos. There’s life here. For better or for worse – people from all extremes of the diaspora coexist here. Their religious devotion, their simple pleasures in life (art, dance, music, food and not to forget, mangoes!), and their unshakeable ambition to thrive using whatever the hell it takes (be it the distant but never fading echoes of vendors calling out to their customers, homeless kids relentlessly begging for their afternoon lunch from passerbys - never to give up until they succeed, the rich doing what they can to “stay” rich).There’s a fire in the people of this place to survive, to thrive, to enjoy their life. And they’ll give it all they’ve got. This is their unity in the monstrosity of their diversity.

Now, imagine this again: You're in the middle of a narrow, tightly packed road. Only this time, you’re not lost. In a crowd of billions in Delhi, for once, you feel you’re found!