Fursat on the DTC route

Its time,he says,to celebrate the city of his cinema

Its a decision you make,where you decide to drop your anchor. If you can find sustenance in a little space in a city,it becomes your home. It depends on what one gets out of a city. Delhi allows you the time to think of life,what it can be beyond work. Delhi allows you fursat.

Ive grown up with this fursat. Ive hung around at bus stops,watching DTC buses go out and come in,watching people walk around,meddle a bit in other peoples affairs. Its this fursat this free time that perhaps makes students of Delhi University far more aware of the politics of the country.

Delhi,though,is a bit apologetic about itself. It’s only now that it has become confident,with the Metro coming in,the roads being built and a cultural renaissance taking place in the capital.

Ive heard that Delhi comes across as a tough city,but isnt Mumbai tough too? Ive heard Delhi is lacklustre,young ADs (assistant directors) on my set crib about the lack of buzz in Delhi. What is this Mumbai buzz everyone keeps talking about? In my opinion,it’s just never-ending traffic. Maybe its a youth thing,this concept of a buzz. Maybe it’s because I moved to Mumbai only nine years ago. But I find buzz in Delhi,in the mohalla and the colony which are alive till late in the evening.

Im very proud of being a Dilliwallah. I like celebrating and enjoying the madness of Delhi. I grew up in Jangpura,central Delhi. The centre of our locality was the gurudwara. I used to get up early on Sundays,all gung-ho to do sewa,just to get extra langar waali dal or kadha prashad. This was where I drew my pride in the place I lived in. The day would be spent chasing and changing DTC buses,which stopped running after midnight. Some of the best conversations I have had were with bus drivers and conductors. Some of the most amazing wisdom,rhythm of language and sense of humour I got were from my DTC friends. And how can I forget the cinema halls? The smell of wood once you walked into a Plaza or an Odeon still lingers. The joy of watching black-and-white Raj Kapoor films in Regal. The thrill of watching Sholay at Plaza,which was the first CinemaScope 70 mm screen. The morning shows of English films at Archana,most of which we watched by bunking school,and in uniform.

Those where the days when we would go to the rocks of Jumbo Point near the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus to see airplanes land. I have so many memories of the Delhi University campus,which was,and is,a unique place. Mumbai lacks a single consolidated university place. Chennai has Presidency College,but nowhere else is the college system so well integrated as in DU. The different colleges with their sets of prejudices the snobbery of Stephanians and our reverse

snobbery towards them. Im from Kirori Mal College,by the way. I graduated in 1987. I shot Do Dooni Chaar three years ago on that campus,Band Baaja Baaraat was shot there too.

The entire lexicon of my cinema,the grammar of Do Dooni Chaar,Band Baaja Baaraat and even the Delhi chapter in the forthcoming Ladies Vs. Ricky Bahl comes from the conversations Ive heard on campus. The bread pakoda is from there. The behenji concept is from there. One has heard this line,Bread pakode ki kasam,meri toh daaeth (death) hi ho gayi jab usne bola ki tu chemistry class bunk kar ke aaja so many times that when I set out to write my characters,the words just come out. Oh,that bread pakoda and that horrible pumpkin sauce,which was so bad that we loved it. The bun-anda and the paranthas we enjoyed.

The food. While Mumbai is big on the concept of eating out,Delhi is more about snacking. The chole bhature,chaat,gol gappas serve us well and we are fairly obsessive about our snack zone. It has to be only the chaat waala on Shahjahan Road,the butter chicken from Gulati restaurant on Pandara Road,the tandoori chicken of Kake da Dhaba and the shammi kebab of Karim’s. I can still feel the taste of the flavoured milk of Keventers,the chicken patties of Wenger’s,the momos of Chanakya,the HCF of Nirulas.

And how can I forget Old Delhi? You can spend the entire day just eating there. Start from paranthe waali galli,hop across to Dariba Kalan for that juicy jaleba,which is so sweet that you absolutely have to have something namkeen. So there is always the samose-wallah nearby with his spicy chutney,which is so spicy that you will need something sweet. Across the road,there is the guy selling moong dal halwa,or gajar ka halwa if it is winter.

I dont want to defend Delhi. I want to celebrate and enjoy Delhi. I want to celebrate that guy who has some connection in some ministry,just so that I can laugh at him. You see,everyone in Delhi is connected everyone has power,it’s highly entertaining. It is this possibility of humour that you can observe which makes Delhi so appealing. I cant call it the spirit of Punjabiyat,even Bongs in CR Park or my friend Venkat in RK Puram,have this vibe,this kar lenge yaar spirit.

For a writer,Delhi is full of characters and humour. From the Parliament,to the businessman to the Auntyji who takes out her charpai in the evening,from the thulla to the postman and the dhabe-wallah. Everyone is either a big joke or they are all in on the joke. And so they are always laughing. Dilli ke log,in kambakhton ke paas time itna hota hai ki apne upar bhi has lete hain aur doosron pe bhi. (The people of Delhi have the time to laugh at themselves and at others). Thats the special quality of a Dilliwallah.

From the work that Im doing,its pretty evident that my heart and mind still beats for Delhi. Im wary of angering anyone by saying so,considering that I work in Mumbai. We joke that these days Yash Raj Films resembles a Delhi University campus. All the directors,from Kabir Khan and Maneesh Sharma,to Vijay Krishna Acharya (Dhoom 3,Tashan) and Ali Abbas Zafar (Mere Brother ki Dulhan),are from Delhi. Through our work,we celebrate not just Delhi but what living outside it means. There are filmmakers like Nishikanth Kamath,who know Mumbai so well that it becomes a strength in their stories. We have lived the Delhi stories,and that’s why we tell those stories.

(Habib Faisal is the director of Do Dooni Chaar,and wrote Band Baaja Baaraat)