The City of Djinns...and Himesh

Hmmm. Delhi is stiflingly hot; the heat grabs at you when you step out, assaulting you, hanging over you like a thick curtain, which chokes you and makes you think longingly of winter climes and chilled beer. The streets are chaotic and spill over with reckless drivers, stately cows and everything except smooth traffic. I see people jiving to loud, Punjabi music in their cars while they whistle at the nearest “baby” and flex their non-existent muscles under their tight Tommy tee shirts. It’s dusty and chaotic and dirty and brims with the smells and sounds of a thousand things at once- overwhelming and confusing and oh, man, so fucking home. I love this place to bits.

It’s good to be back home. Sometimes I don’t realize how easy we had it here; just the other morning sitting comfortably at the tiny little table in the cozy kitchen my mum has done up so lovingly, I realized how comfortable home feels now. In the past year or so, I feel more at home than I ever did. Even the first 18 years of my life, when for heaven’s sake, I lived only in Delhi. The little home-inside-a-home my mum has managed to build in our joint family house (bet all of you understand now) feels more welcoming and friendly (not to mention tasteful) than the entire house did all my life. I come back and lose myself in just being home again- the food, sitting and laughing with my family, allowing myself not to be responsible for my own self (even if it is for a short time), lounging around just reading and listening to music, hanging out with my friends again…the simple pleasures of life. Then some days go by and it hits me again- that restlessness, that longing to get out there, to challenge myself constantly. It’s not that I get bored at home- far from it, I share a wonderful relationship with my family (nope, no I-hate-my-parents-they-were-such-bastards stories), have enough amazingly interesting characters here at home, and Delhi is a colorful city in its own right. It’s just the feeling of inertia, of doing nothing all day except reading or watching television which gets to me (I know…it’s a good thing right? Fine, I’m weird.) But yeah, after a while it bugs me now when I don’t have a task to accomplish or somewhere to go to or something to focus myself on- I guess that I just worry about now doing enough, not accomplishing enough. And it’s not that someone criticizes me about this- it’s just internal. I just feel really restless and worry about watching my life tick away while not following any of my grand plans- be it traveling or reading more or whatever. Anyways, I don’t think I have time this summer to worry about that; haha it’s pretty packed. So good.

I wish I could take out a fatwa. Who in the world convinced Himesh Reshammiya (or however that’s spelled) that he could sing? I’ve attended three marriage functions in the past week (don’t even ask me why anyone wants to get married in this weather) and every bloody DJ in Delhi, it seems is infatuated with that atrocity. He’s all over TV and on every radio station; kids are actually rehearsing dances to his songs. It’s staggering. Amod, I take it back, you can sing. That man has such an irritating nasally voice that it’s incredible anyone can understand what he tries to communicate. I swear, I think his songs are effective torture devices. And there he is, looking like a cow chewing cud, unshaven, while these slender, attractive women dance around him. I’m not a praying man, but God, please- a rocket launcher, and Himesh in my sights.