Friday, May 27, 2011

Happie

      Delhi has been most beautiful for the last 48 hours. The sky looks like it's about to break into tears yet the wind keeps wiping the tears away. And it is B E A UTIFUL!!!! And where else to find myself but my happie place?It's almost as surreal in the evening as it is in the dead of the night. At 2 a.m. the yellow sulphur or halogen (not quite sure which) lights that line the sides of Rajpath just seem ethereal. India Gate at one end and the Parliament at the other-seems like such a long walk. But it is undoubtedly the most beautiful stretch I have ever walked down. Does not matter what frame of mind I am in, the minute I'm there it's all happie. Not happy but happie. Not too many people will even understand the difference but for those who do... :)
       As I sat on the grass and looked down the road to India Gate, there was such a surge of happiness and love. It hit me long and it hit me hard that I'm so settled in this once-upon-a-time-alien city. This is my home now. I am from Kolkata and forever will be from Kolkata but I live in Delhi. And I love this city. It has become my city. It might not have accepted me as a Dilliwali and secretly I'm happy about that (makes me feel less guilty about cheating on Kolkata), but it is mine now. Maybe it's cause of my happie place or the people life threw at me, but it's made sense. All of it. I now understand why people fell in love here. Cupid targeted my ass and how. I think I'm still walking around with that arrow stuck to my rotund posterior. (And all this I thought of while sitting on the grass at 2 am, quite intoxicated.) My mid night sojourns to India have been beautiful. The lanterns burning, the guards in perfect sync and perfectly still, the dogs rolling in the dust and chasing their tails, the silence that is so comforting and of course the Gate itself. I read and re-read the inscription every time I'm there. And always get goosebumps. I have sat and read the names etched in the stone and thought of all those who died fighting wars and ended up being names on some granite. It is Romantic on some level but also so pointless. It's probably silly but silly and crazy is good. I have sat there, looking like an idiot with this perpetual smile stuck on my face. Che bella! Amore! It is love...dont think anything else fits that perfectly.
    To walk around India gate, with the wind dancing with my hair....I've never found it to be still- Shob shomoye ekta hawa kheleche. I often think what it would be like if all the lights were extinguished. Phoo. All is hurtling in the blackness of the night. I'm sure I'd still find no words to describe how beautiful it would be. Someone told me I'm obsessed with the place. I nod vehemently and will keep saying it's my happie place. Whether I have been there with people or not, a part of me has always been alone there and that's what I absolutely love. My mind wanders even when I am with people and goes to unchartered territory and I cannot control it. And I don't mind that at all. I always have a song in my head and it keeps making sense. Harmony amidst madness, I think it is. But I are not dukkho anymore. I am happie and have found love. <3
     



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