Delhi Behind The Scenes

"Dilli mein do kism ke log rehte hain-ek vo jo bhool gaye hain ki vo kahan se aaye hain, aur dusre vo jo bhula dena chahte hain ki vo kahan se aaye hain" -Unknown

Translation : Delhi consists of two kinds of people - first : those who have forgotten where they've come from; second: those who want to forget where they've come from.

- Dhwani Mohan

This city. I’ve grown up here in this city- and I’m sure a lot of you who are reading this, too, have grown up here. It’s a beautiful city, isn’t it? It’s alive. But a part of this city- it’s dead, just like the dark side of the moon. It’s there, it exists, it’s just not visible to any one of us who are just living our damn days, sitting at the porch of the Hauz Khas fort, or the staircases of metro stations.

The second kind that lives in this city is the kind that’s trying its level best to forget.

And unfortunately, whatever external stimulation it is that they need to forget their past, or even their present, is easily accessible to them.

When I was thirteen years old, I remember looking at some young lads outside my school, must be around seventeen, in their worn out school uniforms. They had something stuck between their fingers, it was burning. I knew what a cigarette was, in case you’re thinking maybe I was the naïve kid who had always believed in a hunky dory beautiful life and the existence of Santa (but in my defense, how do you explain all those gifts kept by my bedside on the Christmas morning?). But it wasn’t a cigarette. And it was only until my second year of college that I finally understood what that goddamned thing was that was stuck between their fingers.

Alcohol and cigarettes are available everywhere around us, despite their perpetual legal troubles, and most of us are aware of it. But there’s something more to this dark, addictive side of Delhi than just the two.