The chrysanthemums are late this year, as are my cold quilt covered winter nights. Moonless, still hazy after a fire-crackered diwali, frenzied wedding season. My city of elegance, refinement, grace, sitting silent on the ruins of many who thought they owned it, seems to be giving away again, to the crass, mundane, political bureaucratic businessman morass. Where new money, noise, glitter seem to be the only way to herald an arrival. Bollywood babies clogging headlines. Feudal. Headless. Lost in my first city. Nothing less than an Audi will do. A table for two, rooftop, fine-dining chic. Please.
Dilhi. Where my heart finally rests. My body, restless, will find no peace here it seems. Jamuna reti, my loose grey sand, upon which my city stands. Sand in which nothing will hold. Slipping through my fingers with every grasp. This is the city too, of djinns, of the Sufi, where a grasping, clutching, will only choke. Suffocating the many dynasties that moved here to rule.
Dilhi, my city of the heart. Of a fine-ness of being. Elegance. Generosity of spirit. Grace. To let the moonlight play with the silver of my reti, of my waters. My first city of the night, of much more than that which my eyes call real.
In this issue, through food, music, we explore the night. To lead us too from our stomachs to our heart. To be in flow, as it were, with my river divine.
--editorial from First City magazine
No comments:
Post a Comment