Poem I Devanshi Panda
Delhi at dusk
Is nostalgia at its best.
It is flashes of Jama Masjid at night,
It is pointing at AIIMS from the car because Ma worked there once,
It is the taste of the mountain dosa in the Evergreen at Greenpark,
It is 2000 bollywood music like the Delhi 6 playlist.
Not that I am old enough to be properly sorry,
For a time that is now in the past.
But somehow,
My roots are so deep-seated in the soil of Delhi,
That despite my eastern ancestry,
I cannot help but cry,
In a car back home to a place a little away from this city that I hate and love.
I feel the loss of my youth,
And think of the LSR girls who came before me,
And the pain they endured,
As they saw Lodhi Garden trips trip away from their kolhapuri chappals.
I cannot help but feel that,
Delhi is that lover,
You imagine in your head
To be much prettier than it is.
Delhi is that lover,
Who never loved you back.
But you’ll tell yourself,
And I’ll tell myself, too,
That the dil in Delhi beats for me,
And my heart is a small sandstone brick
In the mosaic that is this city.