Happy budday dilli: shine on you crazy diamond!

Oh yes dilli completes 100 years(loud cheers) and mind you it managed the feat before sachin. For the uninitiated please read up dilli’s history here and stop abusing it by calling deh-li , delly, del-hi (not applicable for south delli chaps)

Let me clarify here that I am nat fram Delhi in fact its been only a year and 7 days that I ve lived in this city (I landed on 5^th Dec 2010) and it is a love affair ever since.

I have lived in various parts of the country before this (major part being south India) but the warmth this city has, the faces, and the people is just amazing. Since my dad has a transferrable govt job, we never stayed in 1 city for long and I kept changing schools. So every time some1 asks me where I am from, I get really confused. But this city made me feel belonged, wanted. It welcomed me with open arms. I feel like I ve been living here for ages within days. No one asked me if I lived in this city or not or why I could not speak Punjabi or where am I from or why have I come to their place and took their jobs or all that crap.

There is a saying in dilli ‘yahan ka koi nahin nahin hai jee, bas log aate gaye aur dilli ke ho ke reh gaye’(no one is actually from Delhi, people kept coming and never went back) and that is what gives delhi its unique flavor. The shops in janpath, the ice cream at India gate, parathe at parathe wali gali and moolchand, the kamla nagar troll on rickshaw, the red fort, the metro ride, walk at Connaught place and the people. Guess mr lutyens saw it before anyone in India could see it. This city has history written all over it. Invaders, attackers, kingdoms, empires came and got mixed with dilli. I did not expect such a warm welcome. Name the cuisine and its here (with a dilli twist of course). Want to see how things co-exist , have a walk in purani dilli(chandani chowk, nayi sadak, chawri bazaar) on an afternoon, and you will know what I am talking about. Contrary to popular belief, you have not had the typical dilli flavor if you haven’t been to purani dilli. And this city turns absolutely amazing in winters. Want to feel proud about the democracy in the country, go and stand near the parliament or take a walk in Mughal gardens in the month of February. Or go for a troll in the lutyen’s area of delhi to marvel at the fusion of Mughal and victorian architecture

But somewhere in the process of calling it del-hi , deh-li, dally or what not, we robbed dilli of its dil. It got the tag of being the crime capital of india because of all the hideous things ppl do to each other. My question: is dilli responsible for people killing each other? I remember a sarcastic comment somewhere about it which said

“blaming Delhi for the crime rate is like blaming Mumbai for the bad films Bollywood makes” I am not defending the acts, I am just saying it’s the people and not dilli.

But all said and done, if you haven’t seen dilli, you are missing something. Come see it once. It’s beautiful! and maybe you ll fall in love too.

Have you had an experience in dilli? do share

note: the author lives in gurgaon(haryana) and its a SHITHOLE

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