I don’t know where to begin. On the first night in the paying guest accommodation where I was to spend the next four months, my first-ever roommate, who I had just met, switched on the TV to kill the silence and began watching Kal Ho Naa Ho .
Now, a weeping SRK on screen is not exactly what I can handle when my heart is already imploding with emotion and my tear glands are way too active. I barely ate, and wept myself to sleep. I was amidst complete strangers in a city more than 250 km away from home, for a whole night for the first time in my life. I am 23, by the way.
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People my age are scaling mountains, winning Olympic medals and beauty pageants, travelling the world and what not, while the biggest feat that I have achieved so far is stepping out of the vicinity of my house for a few months. When I first heard of an opportunity to come to you, Delhi, for an internship, I just knew I had to do it. My young blood had been boiling long enough for me to not think twice. However, first-day jitters got to me before you could. I was scared as I set foot here and who wouldn’t be? Dearest Dilli, you are gigantic enough to swallow a tiny speck of dust like me (metaphorically tiny, of course) and I had no clue as to what you had in store for me. But it worked out well between the two of us, didn’t it?
Luckily, I didn’t have to work very hard to convince my parents about this. They readily agreed to bring me to you. However, seeing my mom sob as she left me here did make me nervous. Perhaps she was more nervous about how I was going to survive with another person living in the same room as me. A single child like me is usually not used to sharing personal space with someone that easily. I was going to have a room-mate for the first time in and the only thing I worried about was accidentally offending her out of my sheer need for privacy. But, to my surprise, I opened up. I lived peacefully with two people very different from myself, for around two months each. And in my very first long conversation with my second roommate, I told her with an evil grin that I wanted to see the world end. That speaks for itself, doesn’t it?
Different people feel differently about living in a metropolis. They may either feel lost or liberated. Well, you made me experience both simultaneously. From my first-ever Metro ride to wandering aimlessly around Connaught Place for hours together, from watching people go about their business while sipping coffee, to trying out a new cafe every weekend, from making my way through a sea of people at the Rajiv Chowk Metro station to bargaining efficiently with the autowallahs, everything I did with you told me a little more about who I was. I wish I could do a lot more.
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Dearest Dilli, you saw me at my emotional worst. You saw me starving and fuming over things I couldn’t control. You saw me weeping in a Metro compartment when I missed home. You saw me wrestle with my desires and mood swings as I looked at the half moon. You saw me cry my heart out to my best friend at an overcrowded cafe. You saw me write poetry as I sat outside a Starbucks outlet in CP watching people. Could I be any more dramatic?
In a short time-span of four months, I became more intimate with you than I ever was with anyone and I do regret that I haven’t seen all of you, yet. The road to self-discovery is long and there is so much more to find out.
So, dear Delhi, thanks for being more than just an experience. I guess I’ll see you soon.
mannat.chugh@yahoo.in