‘Yeh sheher nahi, ek mehfil hai’
Chaiwallahs (teasellers) are very famous in Delhi these days. Be it the one who fought all odds to become the Prime Minister and or the one whose chance photograph led him to become a model. But my favourite chaiwallah is the little boy I saw in Delhi’s Connaught Place (CP). His tattered clothes weren’t really doing a good job of protecting his puny body from the winter cold, but nevertheless, when he saw the old beggar shivering on the pavement, he respectfully gave him a steaming glass of tea.
That’s Dilli for you— conscience where you least expect it.
Someone once told me that Delhi had been cursed that it would never stabilise until seven dynasties had crumbled upon its soil. And so Delhi has been under invasion ever since the 10th Century— that’s almost 1100 years! We’ve had seven dynasties, each invading, but finally assimilating into the melting pot called Delhi. Perhaps that is why Delhi is aggressive, but also accommodative. Nobody is a migrant here, and at the same time, we all are.
Modern times have given us a different type of invasion. Overpopulation is crumbling the infrastructure. Our population density is one of the highest in the country. Just imagine, the Delhi Metro carries 3 million people everyday. That is half the population of UK! And that is why, while people may make fun of Delhiites for being brash and aggressive, I applaud them for not going mad in all this crowd! We have to fight for almost everything here, and yet we live in peace. And no one in Delhi can ever say “We do not want any migrants.”
But Delhi isn’t free of invaders yet. There still are people who aim to destabilise Delhi and crush its spirit for their selfish means. For them, I shall recount the story behind the phrase: Dilli dur ast.
Once the Tughlaq king was angry at Sufi saint Nizammuddin Auliya, and was leading his army towards Delhi to kill him. Auliya’s followers entreated him to flee, but Auliya sat peacefully and quietly and kept repeating “Dilli dur ast” (Delhi is still far away). Soon, panic spread as Tughlaq reached the border of Delhi, but Auliya still sat unmoved. And sure enough, just when he was about to touch Delhi’s border, the king fell off his elephant and died.
Dilli dur ast…
That’s what I say to anyone who attacks Delhi for its aggression, its pollution, or its crime without appreciating its courage. Delhi survives against all odds, accepting everyone in spite of never being accepted by anyone. You just cannot crush its spirit because “Dilli dur ast“.
“Dil va dilli, dono agar hain kharab,
Pa kuch lutf uss ujde ghar mein bhi hai“
(Maybe both the heart and the city of Delhi have been worn down, but some unique pleasures still remain in this ruined home)
— Mir Taqi Mir
We love our home and we shall rebuild it.