Between two cities, a ghazal

The first time these lines from the ghazal came to me, they landed not just as words but as mirrors. A mirror to the city where I was coming of age, New York—loud, relentless, impatient. It wasn’t the romantic New York of movie postcards, nor the hyper-charged New York of today’s social media skyline. It was a city somewhere in between: jagged, raw, unforgiving, and yet, in its own way, tender with possibility.

I lived those lines: the burning chest, the stormy eyes, the restless bodies spilling into subways and sidewalks. New York was not gentle then. But gentleness was not what we were seeking. We were searching for crescendos—highs, breakthroughs, moments of triumph that lifted us beyond our own insecurities. And the city gave them to us, though never freely, always with a demand: work harder, run faster, risk more.

That sher, though, reminded me: beneath the hustle, what we often carried was not triumph but turbulence. We were, each of us, “pareshaan sa kyon hai”—restless without naming why.

“Dil hai to, dhadakne ka bahaana koi dhoondhe,
Patthar ki tarah be-hiss o be-jaan sa kyon hai?”

If there is a heart, it should seek a reason to beat—
why does it lie there, like stone, unfeeling, lifeless?

The heart has to find its excuses to keep going. In New York, my heart found them in books, in street music, in late-night conversations with friends who were half-broken but wholly alive. We were not immune to failure, but neither were we immune to hope. The city carved scars into us, but also gave us stories worth carrying forever.

Today, when I walk the same avenues, after just a week back there, I see a New York more frenzied, more fractured, and somehow less intimate. Everyone is still rushing, but the rhythm feels altered. Maybe it’s the aftermath of years of global uncertainty. Maybe it’s me, seeing it with eyes that now belong half to another city, another country.

Because I came back home—to India. And here too, the heart is searching for reasons to beat.

India, when I returned, was not the India I had left. It was not frozen in time, waiting to greet me with nostalgia. It was an India in conversation with itself—sometimes argument, sometimes affirmation. Streets that once carried the sound of survival now carry the sound of aspiration. Children speak of becoming what they choose, not just what circumstances dictate. Social boundaries stretch and bend, sometimes snapping, sometimes stitching together something new.

Of course, there is turbulence here too. Of course, there are fires and storms. But they are not only symptoms of unrest; they are also signs of energy, of a society pushing against its own stone-like stillness.

That ghazal comes back to me: if the heart exists, it must find its beat. India today is beating with irregular rhythms—complicated, chaotic, but alive.

“Tanhaai ki ye kaun si manzil hai rafiqo,
Ta-had-e-nazar ek bayabaan sa kyon hai?”

What destination of loneliness is this, my friends—
why does the eye meet only wilderness, stretching endlessly?

In New York, loneliness was paradoxical. You could be in the middle of a crowd, surrounded by ten million, and yet feel as if no one saw you. The city, for all its brightness, often felt like a desert—conversations evaporating before they quenched thirst, friendships fleeting, relationships fragile.

And yet, that same desert could also bloom. A stranger’s kindness on a subway platform. A neighbor sharing soup during a blizzard. A professor noticing your voice in a classroom full of noise. The wilderness was real, but so were the oases.

Back in India, I see a different version of that loneliness. Here, solitude is not always private. Families gather, communities interweave, neighbors know each other’s names. But inside those circles, many still feel unseen, unheard. The wilderness is not physical here; it is emotional. We are connected outwardly, but still searching inwardly.

The bayabaan, the desert, is not just in cities. It’s in us.

“Kya koi nayi baat nazar aati hai hum mein,
Aaeena humein dekh ke hairaan sa kyon hai?”

Is there anything new the mirror sees in us—
why does it look at us in wonder, surprised?

When I stand in front of the mirror after these travels—between New York and India, between past and present—I too ask: is there anything new here? Have I changed, or only the backdrop against which I measure myself?

The mirror, like the city, like the country, like the ghazal, reflects both sameness and surprise. The person who once ran through New York’s rain with burning ambition is the same who now walks through Delhi’s heat with a softer, slower pace. But in that change lies something worth holding: the ability to be startled by oneself, to not be fully predictable, to not let life petrify into stone.

The mirror reminds me: if I can still surprise myself, then I am still alive.

And then, the sher that was never sung in the film, but perhaps was the most revealing of them all:

“Ham ne to koi baat nikali nahin gham ki,
Vo zood-pashemaan pashemaan sa kyon hai?”

We never even spoke of sorrow,
and yet he seems so swiftly regretful, so burdened.

How often, in both cities, in both nations, do we carry griefs we cannot name? We apologize before the wound is even visible. We regret before the mistake is even made. We anticipate sorrow, and in doing so, we invite it into our lives.

This sher is not about the other. It is about us. About the way we project our inner storms onto every face we meet. About the way we pre-empt grief, rather than allow joy its full measure.

And so I read this unsung couplet as a warning: not to burden ourselves with sorrows that have not yet arrived.

Between New York and India, what I carry is not just geography. I carry turbulence and tenderness, deserts and mirrors, regret and renewal. I carry the ghazal as a guide, reminding me that no city, no country, no self is without its flames, storms, and silences.

But I also carry a conviction: that across continents and cultures, what anchors us is not the turbulence but the tenderness. Not the wilderness but the oases. Not the stone but the beating heart.

In New York, I once believed the city itself was my teacher. In India, I have come to see that what matters is not the city but the humanity within it—the empathy we extend, the care we embody, the conversations we create, both in public squares and in family rooms.

The ghazal asks questions without easy answers. Cities too pose riddles that resist resolution. But somewhere between the questions and the riddles lies the truth: we are all searching for meaning, for connection, for a reason to let our hearts keep beating.

And so, whether in Manhattan or Mumbai, Brooklyn or Bangalore, whether in the subway at midnight or the by-lanes at noon, I return to the refrain:

“Dil hai to, dhadakne ka bahaana koi dhoondhe.”
If the heart exists, it must find its reason to beat.

That reason, I am learning, is not in the heights of triumph or the crescendos of ambition. It is in the quieter truths—empathy, humanity, love—that cross borders and bridge silences.

And if we can hold on to that, then perhaps, finally, the city—whether New York or New Delhi—will not feel so restless.