Distance yearnings

For a country like India, accustomed to close contact, the loss of a connection with the outside world amid the lockdown has been unsettling

- MANDIRA NAYAR

IN DELHI, the beginning of summer is announced by a tiny purple fruit—the phalsa. Sweet and sour, the phalsa is as much part of the summer experience in the national capital as the hot Loo that blows across the plains.

“It is my favourite bit of summer,” says Pooja Sharma, exclaiming over the peacocks that visit her Vasant Kunj terrace each day. “I miss the phalsa wallah.” Her longing for what is missing—her connection to the world—has been distilled into just this absence of the vendor’s call.

This summer, the streets of Delhi are desolate. “I am standing in my balcony, looking outside, and there is not one person out. Usually the colony is alive with people walking, kids shouting and horns [blaring],” says Sharma.

Across the city, in Nizamuddin, more than just a Covid-19 hotspot and the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat, Aamir, who lives in the basti and works as a guide, is learning to restrict his life to the confines of his small home with his wife, three children and other family members.

The restrictions are tougher here in the shadow of the Jamaat, despite the basti being Covid-free. It was an unusual shab-e-barat—the night of forgiveness. “We prayed all night,” he says. “Women prayed at a different time, as far away as they could,” he says. “Men went up to a terrace, if they had one, or did it at a different time.”