#covid times

Someone carved on the wall in the bathroom stall of my work:

“Yeet the Rich! It’s COVID time!”

Alright then. Let’s get to yeeting.

Delhi, March-April 2021

What do I write when I write about Delhi? A place I have only learnt to love and miss after having been a year away from it. 6 years ago when my plane landed in this city I wanted to take a U-turn the moment I peeked out the exit doors of the airplane. Years later, I am still a bit forlorn of having only spent a month and going back home now because Covid insists to threaten yet again.

One of the things about this city that tugs my heartstrings are its stories- stories of its people, places, its forts, lanes, its cacophony, the cabs, the wide roads that are never really empty. There is so much in Delhi except boundaries. All lines are blurred, yet all experiences from standing in front of a crowded Parantha shop to gazing at the sunset in the Safjardung Tomb is distinct-Distinct and unique from each other. There is always so much to tell, so much to write, so much to observe and so so so much to feel. Delhi is overwhelming at times, and oddly calming in other times. It took me years until I could romanticise every experience in Delhi like I do with every other favourite place that I have visited. And now that I have learnt to live away from this mess, this potpourri of a city, I am always looking back at it with a kind of fondness that I never imagined I would ever give it.