The thing with blogs is - they have to be updated.
And the thing with me is - I usually blog either when I'm exceptionally angry, or when I'm just back from somewhere new or have been covering something or discovering new things amongst new people.
What can I say, sitting in Delhi, filing reports about yet-to-be-created laws of our land?
Besides, the weather's too delicious to allow critiques. Or angst.
All you can do is walk in the monsoon drizzle. All you can feel is the damp edges of your skirt brush your toes. All you can think of is that breeze in the balcony. The morning papers are almost an intrusion into an otherwise harmless world...
Funny, how it was never like this in Bombay.
Bombay - the rains are lashing.
They bind you, they confine you, they swamp you, they confront you, they rise up in sheets and walls and are nearly an assault on the skin, but they don't stop you. Strangely, Bombay rains are not 'stilling'.
Delhi rains are. Stilling.
Like you want to be very still. Like the world might stop, and gawk at it's own reflection in a puddle, and brood about how happy it is.
No, not happy.
Happiness is a strong word.
The city seems to be contented; not sulky, for a change. Like it were toying with the knowledge that the world may be rotten, but so are the leaves floating in the gutter, that even rot is preferable to that searing, numbing dry deadness of May and June. As if, in some corner in the collective memory of civilization, that stalling deadness, that restless heat, still lurked, and made it grateful - even for gutters and stinky narrow streets and muddy feet.
It is breathing harder, this city - but it's not fighting anything. It's just breathing hard, because there's more to breathe in.
The weather is wooing weather. The weather is stay-at-home weather, cook-at-home weather.
It is... it is stilling weather. And I am tempted to be very still and not think of yet-to-be-created laws or how-will-they-ever-implement-it laws or will-it-never-change lawlessness.
But the thing with blogs is - they have to be updated... yes?
yes they have to be..
ReplyDeleteand that was a nice update :)
I decided a while ago that if i feel that I don't have a topic that i feel for, I won't write. I'd rather put up a link to a more interesting post in another blog.
ReplyDeleteAs far as your posts go, I admire the ones that are written in anger OR when you've just come back froim some place new, too. Ever wonder why people have to comment? I am a compulsive commentor, I just need to leave a note that I've read a post..
Since you are comparing rains... let me tell you rains in Bahrain are a breed apart. They are so rare but when they do come, they arrive like long lost relatives that somehow overstay their welcome... but in the last two years, we've had some 'heavy' rains and, I hope, some mechanism is being developed to control the flooded roads and slippery highways... maybe not!
ReplyDeleteNo... dont feel forced to 'update' - you write when you have something new or insightful to say, and that is what makes your blog interesting for me :)
ReplyDeleteand I just got back from work in Delhi - after the Bombay rains, the delhi drizzle, on now off now, made me feel kind of restless and impatient... (I have just posted a picture on my blog about what delhi weather is doing to delhiwalas - have a look)
You tell it so beautifully, even when you don't have anything to say. I am most jealous of you in well-intentioned way (Unlike Urdu, English doesn't give me a separate word for such jealousy).
ReplyDeleteAnd I am like r. Compulsive commenter on the blogs I enjoy. So there...
I loved reading this.
ReplyDeleteand oh...I love rainy delhi.
i am missing the delhi rains..and the smells and sounds :(
ReplyDeleteI too miss the Delhi rains. Aah.
ReplyDeleteHopefully will be back in town before they go away :)
Great post. Hope it rains again real soon.
ReplyDelete