A tale of two cities

I LEFT in search of a home. As I got on to the Goa Express at four in the morning for Delhi, I wasn't sure whether I was going home or le...

I LEFT in search of a home. As I got on to the Goa Express at four in the morning for Delhi, I wasn’t sure whether I was going home or leaving it. It had been a year since I had seen the city of my birth. A city quite different from the mazes of an Old Delhi that emerged from the ravages of history, be it the Khooni Darwaza of 1857 or the Red Fort of the INA trials. Or even a Delhi that survived the Partition.

Mine was a Delhi that was young and vibrant, unburdened by history, ever-growing, ever-expanding. More to the south, where the jungles had been pushed back by a authoritative but creaking DDA, building up flats for a self-financed middle class in the early eighties. Our house was one such. With my beaming father leading us to a duplex apartment that smelled of fresh paint and polished wood. All I could think of in that house was that it was all mine. Back in post-Asiad 1983, I finally had a house that was ours.

And in that house was a room that was painted different from the rest. And Baba said thatwould be my room. For me to have and cherish. Painted a sky blue, it became my world. And my sole comfort. My exclusive haven in my years of growth pangs to adolescent angst, as I trounced from childhood to a robust teen-aged life. From there to college, life grew, as did the city, till one day the city lost its soul. As the meagre monsoons lashed the city, seepage set into the walls of our house, the paint and the plaster crumbled and powerful water boosters became essential to our droughty existence. The nineties ushered in the Maruti Zens jostling for space with the Esteems, Cielos, Safaris and Gypsies. A brave new yuppier generation fought it out on the roads till the day violence on undesirable streets became the norm. The cellphones screamed for attention as the demin-clad, leather-shouldered generation whizzed past. And I, having emerged from a pre-dominantly Bengali neighbourhood of Rabindra Sangeet, smells of fish curry and the warmth of the Durga Pujas, suddenly lost my way.

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Till destiny grabbedme and brought me to Pune. To a place where I could begin my life all over again. I got immersed into a new life where history was the norm of the day. I was inducted into my Katta (a Puneri concept where boys of a miscellaneous nine or ten get together at a particular place and forge friendships for life) and threw myself into a culture that was unique and full of life. Watching the Vijay Dashami procession led by the Tutatris or participating in the innumerable festivals that travelled through time and space and gave a character and history that I was desperate for.

Somewhere, one day, Baba passed away. And life as I knew it changed for ever. Ma ended one battle (among the innumerable ones in her life) and started another. And I got lost in the medicines and the dust and the peeling plaster of the house which lay gasping for breath. The stains were more prominent and the water-tank rustier.

So I came back to Pune. To my friends and the city that offered so much without really asking for much. The roadback started with a small flat that took shape from a solitary sleeping bag to mattresses and cushions. From four alien walls to a home that offered warmth. To a small Ganpati that guarded the house and filled out a life that knew peace.

As I clambered onto the Goa Express on a dusty and sweaty afternoon, bound toward Pune, I knew that the search had come to an end. I was homeward bound.