Random musings on living through the hustle and bustle of Delhi

You might have heard of the saying "Heaven has the climate but Hell has the company". Having grown into an old bird living in the tropical climes of the capital city of India, I can say for sure that Delhi has a climate that may not be exactly hell but comes close to emulating it. But yes, it has much of a muchness when it comes to the matter of company. You need not even crane your neck sideways to look for company. On the streets and in the lanes, in the bazaars, inside the parks and parking lots – everywhere you look, in every nook, cranny and niche of the city, the teeming crowds are pressing all around you announcing their presence.

For someone who worships at the altar of solitude, the swarm of humanity everywhere you move around the city can drive you batshit crazy. The maddening crowds anywhere you set foot in the city can give you an attack of neuroses and it can get under your skin. Imagine wasting 20 minutes of your peak productive time just navigating your way out of the home to the arterial road and finally the main road at nine in the morning on your way to the office. One could cover that 500 metre distance riding on shank's mare. Unfortunately, the total commute spawns a full hour and half spanning a full 25 kms and so the idea of hoofing it is out of the question.

By the time you make a tired entry into the office cathedral, you feel like a dead mouse on the office floor. By a deathly volition of will, you pick yourself up by the tail and drop yourself by the coffee counter. The smell of coffee kind of zaps your synapses into focus again and by the time you have drained your first cup of mocha, you feel like a workhorse ready to sprint through the day. However, the sense of energy and power that drives you through the day betrays you once again on your commute back home. After a busy knackering day in the office, the return journey is often even worse than in the morning – it feels like wading in a sandpit through bumper to bumper traffic all the way along.

Weekends offer little respite though it takes off the ordeal of commuting to the workplace. But then, there's often enough legwork involved attending to the demands of domesticity. Insurance premiums have to be paid, there's the regular bank work to do, need to mark your presence at a family or friends' gathering, visit the child's school for that PTM, get the groceries, take the family out to a restaurant, theatre, shopping...the bucket list of activities is endless.

Once, on a shopping lark with family, I decided to use Delhi's much touted Metro, hoping it would save us the ever niggling hassle of finding a vacant parking lot for the car to heel over. All spiffed up, we reached the nearest Metro for our onward journey. The kids were particularly excited as it was their maiden ride. We found the platforms to be a bubbling hotpot of swarming roistering humanity with crowds degenerating into a maelstrom the moment a train came to a halt. After missing several departures, we at last managed to fling and heave ourselves and found ourselves propelled into the coach by the sheer onward momentum of the clambering passengers.

Once inside, I cast frantic glances to spot a vacant seat for the kids only to find every inch taken by those quick of feet and dollops of street smartness. With every passing station on the route, the coach became chokingly packed to the gills and your heart cried out to break free and escape the walls of this torrid experience. A half hour later, after enduring the unrelenting torment of the ride, we disgorged at the Connaught Place station with an impressive intimacy of the smells of human digestion and wondering at the profile of microbes in the guts of the co-passengers.   

A good restaurant or movie experience on weekends can act like chicken soup for the soul. Unfortunately, most times I venture out on such errands, the experience is underwhelming thanks to the giddy crowds everywhere. Having to wait out or join a queue is something I have a pathological aversion to and it cannot be helped. Since my school-days I've always taken a scunner to standing and waiting in a queue but it's something you run headlong into at most places in the city. You find restaurants full to brimming and need to wait out before a seat comes on offer. That certainly takes away the savory anticipation of pampering your taste buds. At such times, I long that some staff member will take notice from my visits earlier and come forward to help. Long shot and no such luck has ever come in the way. Probably, I have a face that is at the very bottom of one's laundry basket and others take a perverse delight in ignoring me.

Such encounters leave me crestfallen with an agitated feeling that human existence in the city is at the edge of dystopia. The way the neurons and synapses work in my brain, I lose all focus and energy the moment I encounter a line of people waiting ahead of my button nose. The very sight of people standing ahead of me sends me into a tizzy of mental agitation, a sense of feeling locked in a perpetual state of catch-up. Which is why, more often than not, I have begun studiously avoiding venturing out to visit a bank, any public utility office, movie theatre et al. And even though I am a food fiend, an aversive approach to crowds in general and a queue in particular makes me duck out of any restaurant with a check-in line of guests.

But certain chores are essential to survival and have to be gone through. Based on years of my experience in the city, I try at times to employ a one-upping mechanism. When I find my back pushed to the wall, I don't mind resorting to ingenious and even devious ways to sneak my way up a queue. If I have to deposit cash in a bank and run into a line of people waiting ahead, I immediately move to the window for senior citizens, which is more often than not without the customary gaggle of customers. Once I reach the window I pretend calling out to an imaginary elderly kin at a distance while making sure that teller hears it well: "No, No Mother, remain seated there," and pointing to the teller..."It's my mother there...she is not feeling well...please make this deposit entry fast...."

If the performance is rapier sharp and impressive, it's a slam dunk and you get to score effortlessly even while laughing up your sleeve. But there could be times when the bluff gets called out. In such circumstances, the important thing is to not give your cards away but seize the moment to radiate an even more impressive force-field of bluster. Even if the performance failed to yield the desired result, wait to perform a better encore when the next opportunity presents itself. Remember that even the most whiplash smart gets to draw an awful card once in a while. But instead of brooding and cursing your luck, just look ahead and move on. Until next time.