Malvika's Ramblings

Lohri night

Rewdi bubbling, melting, caramalising and pouring down the bonfire logs.

Dilli. Beautiful?

As Khushwant Singh said – Delhi is like his hijda mistress Bhagmati. She is ugly to an outsider but reveals her charms only to insiders. If you can look past the squalor, you can enjoy the Sufi-ism, the sandstone domes and IHC.

He also said that no one belongs to cosmopolitan Delhi.

If a person says he is from Delhi, people ask “No, tell me, where are you originally from?” To which he may answer “Arrey, I am from pro-par Delhi.”
(Pro-par = Proper)

I realized how Delhi grips one, when I hit South India for a long trip and started missing the blingy jordaar tube-lit dhabas on the highways – the Las Vegas strips of Dilli.

So again, is Delhi beautiful? Only if the following makes it so:

Dilli ki sardi. The invigorating brrrr of winterrr.

The Sin-Cityness of Dilli. Dark alleys where you’ll be yanked in a Maruti Omni (kidnapper’s vehicle of choice) and feature in the newspaper-headlines the next day.

Old-world Chandni Chowk with streets stocked with spare auto-parts. Grease n black. Food lanes stuffed with beggars on haunches. Animated halwais. Stoned sadhus. Qutb minar. Ghost town Tughlaqabad, successfully accursed by Saint Nizamuddin. (The saint told Mohd. tughlaq - Only jackals and dacoits will haunt your fort.)Nizamuddin Dargah. Pigeon specked Jama Masjid. Dirty Yamuna with glorious yestyeryears. Dilli darwaza. Ajmeri darwaza. Bullet-marked Darwaza. Horseshoe darwaza. Rashtrapathi Bhavan. Wide avenues on Janpath road. Embassies. Fat ambassador cars. Hauz Khas (the royal bath). Haus Rani. Lutyens grandeur.

Bohemian jaunts in Janpath, stories of Paharganj chemical drug concoction explosions, strangers I meet at Blues and TLR.

The dude-ism of Delhi. Guys who you know are MCPs just by looking at them, designer gloss, rash driving.

Café Turtle + Book shops.

Insomnia and house-hunting. Real estate brokers with aquariums.

i Want-i Want-i Want shopping at Ambience/ Select Citywalk.

***

Dilli. Too much personality for 'beautiful'.

I know you want me

There should be a website that matches people for sponsorships.
Sponsorship givers with takers.
For example, sponsors and event-holders.

• Beam mobile money transfer could choose college fests.
• Foreign education agencies could sponsor college fests.
• Idea mobile service could choose rural carnivals.
• Youthful fashion lines like NUON or NUN could sponsor DU fests, or fashion college NIFT’s fest – Spectrum.
• MRF, Apollo, Michelin tyres could choose road events like the Sjoba Rally in Simla.
• TATA DOCOMO GSM Mobile Service (that says - Do the new.) could choose to sponsor first-time new-format events.
• Toyota and Honda could sponsor Plant-a-Tree NGOs.

Database makes life so much easier.
Go ahead, do it. Award-winning, money-minting idea out of the bag.

TFN in pencil

Here are some sketches from the TFN 09 cycling expedition South India.

To know the full story click here.

A bullock-cart-driver offers me some rehhydration on the highway.

The village welcome.

Nischal walks into Support Station 2.

Felt like Pulpy Orange on wheels, after OD at each support station.

Siva and the elephant.