R2R: Return

Yeh Dilli Heh mere yaar

Bas ishq mohabbat pyar

February 15, 2010.

After a lifetime, five years, ten years, three days, two nights, aeons... I'm back in Delhi.

Or was I never gone to begin with...

I woke up feeling cramped, courtesy the air conditioning ducts placed as to blow the cold air straight on to my lower back and buttocks, and due to the fact that I had to share my sleeping place with one very big luggage case. Thanks to yesterdays' late night conversation with Anthony Robbins and other such characters, it was late when the awakening happened with finality, you know - the feeling where the thought of sleep itself is anathema, around 7-30. It seemed early for the triple sleeper ac folk though, most of them were still curled up inside their complementary bedspreads.

Brand new day.

Brushed, freshened up (nothing even noticeable, the sterility of the ac denies you the pleasure of feeling fresh), then came back to the cabin. Helped off one of the co-passengers at Jhansi, then came back, and started to eat the upma that the pantry car had served up, which looked like unappetizing glop, but tasted surprisingly good...

The lady who had occupied the last empty seat in the cabin yesterday night was reading a book called 'Beyond the Secret', another extension to Rhonda's labor of love by someone else. She was saying something about not getting breakfast,or tea, or something... And then, as I was eating, she said something about Ayurveda, a certain shoulder ache of hers that wouldn't go away. When she noticed me paying attention, our co-passenger Mrs. Sreelatha, of the Kerala House, saw her noticing it, and introduced me as an Ayurveda doctor.

I asked her if she had tried manifesting breakfast, with the Law of Attraction. Or perhaps, she didn't want breakfast as badly, or believed that she was not worthy of breakfast, that is why she wasn't getting any.

That sparked it off with Mrs Alka Adrianvala, 62 years, sprightly, well-versed in a handful of languages and of varied interests, just the sort of patient I want for an early morning consultation on a train...

Mrs. Adrianvala had married a Parsi, but is a stout believer in hinduism. She told the company about the history of the Parsees, how they had fled from their original place when Muslims overran the place taking their sacred fire with them, and how they had come to India, where they persuaded the ruler to let them stay. It is said that the King of the parts that they had come to settle in had said to them that the place was overpopulated as it was, and that their addition would stretch resources. But the leader won him over with his intelligence, when he mixed in some sugar with the full glass of milk that the king had with him at the time of the conversation (That is India, kings drinking milk in the durbar instead of wine and what not), indicating that their addition would not make the population larger, but only sweeter.

The conversation veered to many topics. We discussed astrology – the myths of the Nadi Jyotisha (she had a reading done by a nadi astrologer in Nagpur, and was very impressed, almost astounded at some of the facts that he had revealed), hypnotism (she has tried self-hypnotism, and was knowledgeable about the art, which was pleasant, because as a hypnotist, I found that explaining to old people that what I was doing was not sorcery of some sort took up a great deal of my time back in Kerala), reiki and Pranic Healing (she's also done Grandmaster level), yoga and much philosophy.

We talked of Gaga Bhatt and Swami Ramdas, about Yakshis and visions and prophecies. And as we talked, the window frames discarded landscapes after landscapes, and we were at Agra.

The train, which was on time till then, and most probably thought its behavior was unbecoming of a vehicle under Indian Railways, started running late.

As we neared the outskirts of the city, I leaned out from the doors and breathed in the cold air. New constructs dotted the horizons, new cars whizzed whenever they could on new roads, and just got stuck in the traffic most of the time. Saw rag-picking children play an engrossing game of make-believe marriage sitting near a dump heap, on waste ground, with torn dresses but full smiles, and the sour and serious faces of a couple in a Merc on the road beyond driving to their everyday tasks of saving the world – their own one.

Krishnamurti in his 'That Benediction is where you are' – "In the midst of all this poverty, it takes a thick skin to be rich". I think I feel how he got that thought.

And now I am on this bed, listening to the sounds of this neighborhood in Delhi. There are some kids screaming their heads off, I can't imagine whatever for, and by the accompanying sounds of exasperation, nor can their distraught mothers.

Horns hoot happily in the nearby road.

After years in the village/town areas of Kerala, where houses are set wide apart, the closeness of the cluster of homes here feels somewhat strange. I can hear the conversations in the second floor of the apartments across the narrow road; pans clanging around as some housewife, or part-time homemaker, begins the work for the evening dinner; taps running in bathrooms and somewhere to my left and above, as someone waters plants in ornate pots balanced precariously on small balconies where they can just about get their daily rations of sunlight; motors running to replenish the black PVC tanks sitting atop these constructions. I can catch the smell of at least three different types of cuisine being prepared, the aromas of Punjabi, South Indian, and Bengali food all blending together into a feeling of satiation. I wonder if I will be able to know how many people in this apartment cluster are making love tonight if I listen well... Perhaps, they've learned how to be quiet, understanding that the thickness of the walls will not hold within itself throes of passion above a certain threshold. Or perhaps, more frightening, they're all acclimatized to this cacophony, this medley, and they tune out what they don't need to hear, be it cursing or lovemaking.

Mahanagaram oru mahavyadhiyepole aanu. The Big City is like a big disease, a very contagious one, and one which can lie in sleepers for many years before suddenly sprouting up again. Before you know it, the smells and the sounds grow on you, you feel a part of yourself dissolving in the spirit of optimism that reflects on each bright eye that you meet, each smile that you see...and part of the spirit of the city invades and colonizes entire sectors of your thoughts, seeping in through every defense that you hold forth – the dust, the grime, the long hours, the striking imbalance between the have's and the have-nots...

My long-lost cousin bro,on meeting whom it (again) felt like he was never gone, came to visit in the dwellings that the Hospital had provided me at night, and we had dinner together.

Tomorrow is the first day at the Santhigiri Ayurveda Vaidyasala at Delhi...