the inertia of leaving
been sick since i arrived here in new delhi last week. so was mostly cocooned in the house of gudang and tapas, eating lots and lots of karela (ampalaya) to supplement the prescribed medicines. been hell-bent on getting well and well i became..
so yesterday, right after i was able to finalize my schedule and book my ticket for hanoi, gudang and i went to the pahar ganj main bazaar area in new delhi for some, well, important gallivantings. just perpendicular to the new delhi railway station, the bazaar was a frenzy of sights, smells, sounds… sandwiched by rickety and raucous shops teeming with various stuff that any hungry, dazzled, accumulative tourist can imagine of is a narrow strip of road. this road, in this moonsoon season, becomes an arena of constant negotiations between bicycle, hand-pulled, and motor rickshaws, motorcycles, cars, marauding contemplative cows, marauding tourists, and other itinerant people. gudang and i were checking out the shops – the sandals, the trinkets, the clothes, the lord ganeshas, the money changers, the incense, the teas, ad infinitum ad nauseum…
after sometime, we decided that we were tired and need to irrigate ourselves. we were in front of a café where a music stand beside it is playing some nusrat fateh ali khan. i felt some surge of elation inside me and asked the music guy to play mast qalandar mast as we waited for our chai. and suddenly, or was it gradually – for i just didn’t notice how – i was overcome with sadness. something moved inside me and some sights and memories from pakistan started streaming inside my head.
when i was still in pak more than a week ago, i have been trying to write as my own way of looking back and remembering my two years in pak. but my pen won’t accelerate. even this blog has been parched in the last three months.
anyway, it seemed that it was that overwhelming sadness while listening to the qawwali that has wrestled me out of these gathering moss. while the qawwali was looming throughout that wedge of the bazaar, i was trying to catch the fragments of memories appearing through my head.. i told gudang that i am really missing that part of the sub-continent. i wanted to “sob out loud” in the chaos of pahar ganj…
and that night, when we came back from the bazaar, i listened to dido’s “here with me” for the first time after the last time i listened it, just a few moons back…
i didn’t hear you leave
i wonder how am i still here
and i don’t want to move a thing
it might change my memory
oh i am what i am
i do what i want
but i can’t hide
and i won’t go
i won’t sleep
i can’t breathe
until you’re resting here with me
and i won’t leave
i can’t hide
i cannot be
until you’re resting here with me
i don’t want to call my friends
for they might wake me from this dream
and i can’t leave this bed
risk forgetting all that’s been…
gotta go. still got that long journey ahead…
