The perils of professional insomnia.Occasionally feeling like an exile from your own life. Just returned fromBangalore and Cochin; a city gone mad and a city still calm and warm by the sea.Back to the cold of Delhi. And a sudden lack of desire to hang out in openspaces at 3am, when the chill enters your bones.
So then I get invited to this dinner party last night. The host is someone Ihaven’t met before. I accept, guiltily. For this is the night I’m supposedto be out wandering. Doing my Majaz/Frost dead poet act. Sheher ki raat aurmain nashaad-o-nakaara phiroon. City Night and I wander glum and unemployed.I have been one acquainted with the night...
The party is in one of those mod South Delhi localities surrounded by medievalwalls they never notice. Posh-ish. I walk in past two really loud weddingprocessions and when the door is opened I realise that I know everyone there.The graphic novelist, the metrosexual, the fantasy writer... And there’s noalcohol. A dry day caught everyone unawares, Guru Tegh Bahadur’s martyrdom.The night suddenly stretches long with déjà vu... my true column beckons.
But there are seventy owls in this extremely well-done apartment, gloweringbeautiful and sleeplessly from walls, from side tables, from bookshelves, in thebathroom... I’m already feeling at home. The host rustles up instinctivegourmet food, no recipes followed, aubergine slices with cheese. Some cannabisis passed around. The conversation flies.
Silkcotton trees. Belly dancing. It’s supposed to be deeply spiritual. But Inever quite could get the hang of how your upper and lower bodies move indifferent directions at the same time.
Cities remembered. Chicago always has these huge skies, always photoshopped. Andthe evening falls with a thud. The Bronx is invoked. And Paris, as we diss thework of noted French graphic artist who made awful film...
Past midnight someone arrives with rum from Gurgaon. Have owls ever talked toyou? They are fearless perched on their trees as they follow you with theireyes... some of us dance. To Romanian gypsy fiddles.
This morning as I recollect the party and write about it, it seems to me that itwasn’t special. Great evening, yes. One of the more memorable in recent times,but it shares a pattern with others past. The conversation circles the world, anowl on silent wings, but seldom lands here in Delhi. In a city aspiring toglobality, nostalgia and identity are always defined by elsewhere.
Gulabjamuns are brought out to go with Chinese wine. They’re soggy and toosweet. Someone comes up with a bright idea. They are halved and rum is pouredover them, and then they’re set alight, burning with a blue flame.
At 2.30 in the morning, flambéed gulabjamuns taste divine.
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This article originally appeared in Delhi City Limits, December 15,2005
