The events that are being written about, in A Tale of Two cities have happened much before September, but are being formally recorded since this month.

Limbo

I’ve been living in limbo between two cities. Its Showing in my attire. I’m wearing a blouse I bought in Mumbai and this gorgeous, flair skirt I bought recently at Sarojini Market, Delhi.

For weeks now, I have been traversing the aerial distance between the two cities, Its like having my feet floating in two separate monsoon puddles at the same time.

I have been living simultaneously in two different cities.

It is 6:48 p.m in Mumbai. I am at work, placidly applying the finishing touches to my most recently created web packs at Webaroo, Powai.

It is 6:48 p.m in Delhi. I’m lying luxuriously on his makeshift bed, naked, bare-feet. The crisp air from the cooler is drifting across the texture of my bare black skin. In my hands I hold a novel by Marquez. Outside the window, the sky is approaching a populated shade of evening; the neighbours are settling into their evening attire- awaiting night. He will be home any moment now. He will tug at the red string and the wind chime-temple bell will dangle noisily. I will put on a piece of cloth to cover my bare body, walk past the terrace, open the door and let the night in with his dusty feet.

But this simultaneous existence is temporary. Delhi is adopting me. I’ve completed all the bureaucratic formalities. I should be welcomed with a makeshift bed, a table, a chair, in a building named after some river in India, Brahmaputra, Kaveri, Ganga… It doesn’t matter. I do not crave a sense of belonging, I’ve given it up for adventure. I want to criss-cross the streets with a flower on my hair and make love to him anytime we like or board a train to Benares, Jaipur, Dehra Dun to cure my itchy feet

I want to be.

Delhi is a Hijra city. Delhi tremors like a man that can never satisfy himself and dresses up like a woman who has too much biology to hide. For every exquisite minar, every bosom-like dome there is a symmetric Connaught Place or a structured, insipid Metro or ambassadorial Chanakyapuri. The skies are infertile. The Clouds unveil a sterile form of rain that falls without fucking the earth, sometimes it crawls by softly, like a discreet woman afraid of ruining her declining reputation, sometimes it strikes the earth like an insipid man who has the urge and the drive but no skill for performance.

I am learning to accept my step-parental relationship with Delhi, i have begun to anticipate the rudeness, the crassness, the abrasiveness, all those synonyms that acquire separate significance in Delhi.

I am still negotiating the lines drawn over two cities. My hips dangle over the edge of one line and almost simultaneously over the threshold of another till my body surrenders somewhere in between, like an exonerating crucifixion.
It is 7:25 in Mumbai. Uttarika is travelling in that classy yellow and black rickshaw on her way to Pop Tates where i must meet her. We will be sipping Mojitos, contemplating the uncertain courses of our lives, negotiating distances, trying to step over borders with our minuscule finances.

It is 7:25 in Delhi. He and I are navigating the vast expanses of our bodies, investigating our intimate cries of pleasure mixed with exhaustion mixed with desire and the salty taste of mind-numbing passion.

Mumbai Meri Jaan, Ab Dilli Duur Nahin

Second Coming.

This time I was flying to Delhi. I cleverly disguised my enthusiasm with nonchalance, buckled my seatbelt, and sat upright, like a discreet exclamation mark.

After having sufficiently ruminated the direction of its course, the aircraft stuck its arms out boyishly and decided to invade the sky. It sped across the runway like an impatient child desperate for that last bite of chocolate and took off suddenly, like a sweltering piece of pop corn that flies out of the pan.

Everything silently fell into perspective. From my window I could see white brushstrokes on jet black rivers of tar; Miniscule boxes overflowing with cramped busy bodies, crawling across vertical tracks; a timid pond, like a desolate island of water surrounded by gigantic stretches of saturated land.

Crumpled-paper-like patterns emerged through the gauzy film of clouds, which morphed into electric curves and ripened into waves on the Arabian Sea. At last I was moving against the tide without the slightest fear of drowning.

My city soon dissolved into a gigantic bowl of soup brewed by some old hag in the sky with an eccentric aesthetic appetite.

Above the horizon an incomplete moon hung on display, white, bright, ladylike. The sky was a blue, misty sea getting ready for a first-night-last-night exhibition of a resplendent ‘moonset’ which began and ended in an expanse of seconds.

The sky was like an insecure adolescent trying out ten thousand outfits for a first date

A thin layer of cloud now spreads over the sky’s sky, like emaciated, amorphous specters from ghastly nightmares. The sky is trying out the most peculiar shade of blue – a burning blue tempered by interspersing strands of frosty white. The clouds have morphed into sectors of a well planned city. They cluster about river banks and have now established an empire, over which reigns the Moon, like a luminous queen.

Layers are being added to the clouds, like white bedsheet upon white bedsheet upon white bedsheet upon white bedsheet upon white razai upon thick white blanket upon white bedsheet.

We are that single pea that disturbed the princess’s perfect, royal sleep.

The clouds have begun to bombard each other, like giant specks of dusty white on a television screen that has lost signal.

Suddenly, there is clarity. A silent, beseeching clarity. I peep through the window and am bemused by the grand constellations that appear on the earth. The Captain announces his intention of circling Delhi until the runaway would be clear for landing.

The city stretched itself out in its nightly gown, the undulating constellations throbbing on its silken black terrain.

Soft rain drops skidded across my window. They whispered of his presence.