“Every city has a sex and age…” John Berger
That being so
Delhi is an aging,
paan chewing,
spittle spewing
cross dresser.
The first indication
of its dual inclination
emerges at crossroads
where expensive,
almost state of the art
Jaguars, BMWs, Mercs,
Hondas, and Toyotas
screech to a halt
at the traffic light.
In the draft
created by impatient revving
of their exhausts,
our cross dresser’s skirt lifts
to reveal unshaven legs-
Mendicants lurch from kerb to car
clattering begging bowls.
Itinerant sellers with sad eyes
thrust their wares
at fogged air-conditioned windows,
whose horns impatiently honk,
raring for a green signal
to race away from this revelation
of their insides.
II
This muddle of identities
becomes bunched in
that jumble of dresses,
high and low,
that lie side by side
in our cross dresser’s wardrobe.
Flung around
magnificent medieval minarets
mange of this city wraps itself
in unsightly, moth eaten patches.
Immigrant’s shanties,
middle class balconies
bulging with bania baroque,
metroworks, makeover malls,
flyovers and feeder roads
all vie for space here-
skeletons in the cupboard,
dancing to the tune of heavy machines.
III
Our cross dresser
has had seven makeovers
or more,
her ruined beauty
still glimpsed
in remains strewn across
from South to North –
Kutub, Rai Pithora, Tughlakabad,
Siri, Nizamuddin, Lodi, Old Fort,
Shahjanabad, Chawri bazar, Ballimaran,
Civil Lines…
IV
In between these relics,
the living city
breathes in gulps,
its fragmented identity of Ps-
Pollution, Power, Politics,
all with a ‘capital’ P.
Sometimes it’s a Haryanavi
crew cut wearing a police dress
and a mask
directing traffic at some
chaotic crossing.
Sometimes it’s a balding
politician’s flunky in Lutyens’ Land,
turned on by VIP sirens
as he accompanies memsahib
for an exclusive manicure.
Sometimes, it is burly men in beards,
and hidden women in burqas,
going about their daily lives,
stirring preconceived prejudices
of passersby, who are on their way
to a political rally where
saffron robes and flags will flutter
and fluster the breeze.
Sometimes it is a Sardarni
coming out of a Gurudwara.
Sometimes it is an off duty nurse
under the lustful gaze of strange men,
walking to her rented accommodation,
far far away from her home in Kerala.
Sometimes it is the rage
of fists and hockey sticks
erupting on some random road.
Sometimes, it is the trees,
leaning tiredly over pavements.
Sometimes it is their encircling
asphalt necklace,
slowly choking life out of them.
Sometimes, it is the remains
of a greenbelt that once encircled
the waist of the cross dresser,
now torn in strips,
revealing its underbelly
of bulging builders’ flats.
Sometimes, it is that choked thread of water,
a mighty river of the past,
that now looks and smells more
like the ooze that comes out from
under the doors of public urinals.
Sometimes, it is a blessing of Dargahs.
Sometimes it is a curse of abuses.
Sometimes it is scorching.
Sometimes it is shivering.
Sometimes, it is the rasping
cough of asthma.
Sometimes it is the bully.
Sometimes, it is the bullied.
Sometimes, it is the camaraderie
of drunken friends swaying an evening.
Sometimes, it is the ooze of lonesome booze.
Sometimes, it is the entitlement
of gated, middle-class residents
issuing passes to control the entry
of Bengali maids, cleaners and drivers,
for mistreatment
as their ‘rights’ of passage.
Sometimes, it is the cold wind
whipping thorough a makeshift
hammock between poles
that a Bihari mother has made
for her weakly wailing infant,
as she carries bricks on her head
at some building site.
And sometimes
our city is just that-
a cross dresser,
a Punjabi pun
that reflects in suited booted
angry middle aged executives,
rushing to serve
their hours of corporate servitude.
V
It is only at night,
when the city takes off
its clothes
and settles down to sleep
in rang mahals and rain baseras,
that it openly, nakedly
reveals the flip side of its personality,
its tired Janus face that just longs to sleep
(and sometimes, heaven forbid, to weep.)
So begins the artist’s cycle once more …
