Who am I kidding? I knew I'd be coming back here. This two-bit city of yours. This smashed harlot. You're a local, aren't you? It's in the way you sit. The way you cradle that drink - gingerly but constantly, like somebody might try to yank it from you. Hell, it's in the way you smell. Delhi, Delhi, Delhi.
We keep coming back to her, don't we?
We come and sit in dives like this one and tell each other the city is caustic, and there's something in the water, buddy, better stick to beer.
Yes, I'll have another. Thank you.
There was this story my Grandfather used to tell me. About this place, except before the Infusion. A few thousand years before, actually.
We've all heard about the Ramayana somewhere or the other, right? Happy prince exiled, dead demons everywhere. And most of us know the misery starts when an old king accidentally kills an infirm old couple's only son.
The kid's a bloomin' saint, as it turns out, so the parents curse the king pretty nasty. And then history takes its course.
By which I mean a bunch of violent shit happens.
But coming back to this kid.
His name's Shravan Kumar, and he's the closest the epic gets to an ideal human being before clearing its throat and announcing the birth of Ram.
This Shravan Kumar, his parents are blind, see? So they quite obviously need his help getting around. At the time of this story he's carrying them around in these huge wicker baskets dangling from the ends of a wooden staff.
As the story goes, Shravan Kumar gets near the river Yamuna at the point where the modern Indraprastha stands, and takes a break to drink from the river.
This bit wasn't in the original story, but you can imagine a really young man standing next to a river, right? Add in a glade of deciduous trees stretching away behind him, the old couple perched on their twin wicker baskets under the nearest neem or peepal, taking in the crowded air of the plains, still only halfway through the transnational journey that is the chaar-dhaam pilgrimage.
Now imagine the young man looking down into the water as he drinks, seeing the muddied turmoil of alluvial silt beneath the surface, a few ripples in the reflected sky that mean nothing to him.
His own reflection, maybe, clear and sharp but somehow darker.
I'm beginning to ramble again, aren't I?
Shravan Kumar finishes drinking and turns to his parents.
"I feel tired, to be honest with you," he says. "I've been carrying you everywhere for ages. Shouldn't I get a chance to go out and explore whatever pleasures the world has to offer?"
"It's only fair," agrees his father. "Where are we right now?"
"The banks of the Yamuna." The shapes in the water jagged and angular, even though the city that will taint everything is still years and years in the future.
"We won't do too well in a forest after nightfall," the old man says. "Could you take us to the plains across the river, please? We'll ask someone for help there."
"It's the least I could do," Shravan Kumar reasons, and off they go.
Nobody speaks for a while.
"Are we on the other side yet?" The mother asks eventually.
"We crossed a while ago."
"Well, then," the father says, "Thank you, son. Leave us wherever you-"
"Of course I'm not leaving you," Shravan Kumar interjects. "It was a ghastly thought to begin with. I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry."
And onward they go through the gathering twilight, away from the place where brothers will eventually bay for each other's blood, farther and farther still from the monstrosity that will soon erupt over the darkening waters of the Yamuna.
This City we still can't let go of.
It's the darndest thing, to be honest. I come back to this story every time I've had a rough night in the city. I think of how close Shravan Kumar came to upsetting the entire course of history - what if he'd simply taken off? But he learnt that day that even the strongest and most resolute amongst us are allotted our second chances, even if we never use them.
Except a disease as virulent as the one he tasted on the water that day probably wouldn't need a second chance.
This bit wasn't in the original story, but you can imagine a young man carrying his parents across the plains, right? Add in the blackened water of the river they've just crossed, his farther silent but smiling, his mother dozing lightly.
The young man's in a hurry. They're halfway through a tour of the Chaar Dhaam, and he's just overcome a particularly messy personal crisis.
The young man being the nearest you'll get to an ideal person without having to return to the classics.
Now. Even if the young man knows there won't be a return trip - even if he knows death lies sleeping across his path, nestled in the quiver of an old king a couple of glades down the path - I don't think he'd look back at the river.
I can't possibly imagine why he'd want to.
We keep coming back to her, don't we?
We come and sit in dives like this one and tell each other the city is caustic, and there's something in the water, buddy, better stick to beer.
Yes, I'll have another. Thank you.
There was this story my Grandfather used to tell me. About this place, except before the Infusion. A few thousand years before, actually.
We've all heard about the Ramayana somewhere or the other, right? Happy prince exiled, dead demons everywhere. And most of us know the misery starts when an old king accidentally kills an infirm old couple's only son.
The kid's a bloomin' saint, as it turns out, so the parents curse the king pretty nasty. And then history takes its course.
By which I mean a bunch of violent shit happens.
But coming back to this kid.
His name's Shravan Kumar, and he's the closest the epic gets to an ideal human being before clearing its throat and announcing the birth of Ram.
This Shravan Kumar, his parents are blind, see? So they quite obviously need his help getting around. At the time of this story he's carrying them around in these huge wicker baskets dangling from the ends of a wooden staff.
As the story goes, Shravan Kumar gets near the river Yamuna at the point where the modern Indraprastha stands, and takes a break to drink from the river.
This bit wasn't in the original story, but you can imagine a really young man standing next to a river, right? Add in a glade of deciduous trees stretching away behind him, the old couple perched on their twin wicker baskets under the nearest neem or peepal, taking in the crowded air of the plains, still only halfway through the transnational journey that is the chaar-dhaam pilgrimage.
Now imagine the young man looking down into the water as he drinks, seeing the muddied turmoil of alluvial silt beneath the surface, a few ripples in the reflected sky that mean nothing to him.
His own reflection, maybe, clear and sharp but somehow darker.
I'm beginning to ramble again, aren't I?
Shravan Kumar finishes drinking and turns to his parents.
"I feel tired, to be honest with you," he says. "I've been carrying you everywhere for ages. Shouldn't I get a chance to go out and explore whatever pleasures the world has to offer?"
"It's only fair," agrees his father. "Where are we right now?"
"The banks of the Yamuna." The shapes in the water jagged and angular, even though the city that will taint everything is still years and years in the future.
"We won't do too well in a forest after nightfall," the old man says. "Could you take us to the plains across the river, please? We'll ask someone for help there."
"It's the least I could do," Shravan Kumar reasons, and off they go.
Nobody speaks for a while.
"Are we on the other side yet?" The mother asks eventually.
"We crossed a while ago."
"Well, then," the father says, "Thank you, son. Leave us wherever you-"
"Of course I'm not leaving you," Shravan Kumar interjects. "It was a ghastly thought to begin with. I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry."
And onward they go through the gathering twilight, away from the place where brothers will eventually bay for each other's blood, farther and farther still from the monstrosity that will soon erupt over the darkening waters of the Yamuna.
This City we still can't let go of.
It's the darndest thing, to be honest. I come back to this story every time I've had a rough night in the city. I think of how close Shravan Kumar came to upsetting the entire course of history - what if he'd simply taken off? But he learnt that day that even the strongest and most resolute amongst us are allotted our second chances, even if we never use them.
Except a disease as virulent as the one he tasted on the water that day probably wouldn't need a second chance.
This bit wasn't in the original story, but you can imagine a young man carrying his parents across the plains, right? Add in the blackened water of the river they've just crossed, his farther silent but smiling, his mother dozing lightly.
The young man's in a hurry. They're halfway through a tour of the Chaar Dhaam, and he's just overcome a particularly messy personal crisis.
The young man being the nearest you'll get to an ideal person without having to return to the classics.
Now. Even if the young man knows there won't be a return trip - even if he knows death lies sleeping across his path, nestled in the quiver of an old king a couple of glades down the path - I don't think he'd look back at the river.
I can't possibly imagine why he'd want to.
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