Colour by Memory

Another Holi is over.

As I look at the mixed colours of the flowers outside, I can almost see three little girls, Sonal, Vanita and Gowri, sitting at the edge of the flower bed and drying themselves in the hot sun on another lawn in another time. They seem sad that Holi is over but are already making plans for next year. They'll have more water and colours ready next time to throw at Babloo, Vivian, Vernon, Bobby and Uday.

What a happy thought - next year! Only 364 days to go! Next year they will all be one year older - one year closer to playing the boring Holi that Viji, Rekha, Manju and others go and play at Mamta Sinha's house, playing the dholak and singing songs.

But not as bad as Maiji and Babuji's Holi, all they did was walk around the colony going to each house with the uncles and aunties, carrying dry colour and putting only a little bit of that on each others' foreheads. 

Some doors never opened on Holi.

Maiji's plateful of ellu urundai was kept ready for visitors in the front veranda and next to it there was a plate with packets of red and green colour. Gupta Uncle, Uday's father, wore a starched white dhoti. Aunty, tiny next to him, in a fluffy white saree. Uncle had the second biggest smile - Babuji's was the biggest!

The girls would sit there in the sun until they were called home to have their baths and then eat. They knew that there'd be no more hot water baths allowed after today.

No sweaters needed, either, and best of all, they could switch on the fans in the evening.

Delhi Heart

I spent my growing up years in Delhi: more than half my life. I went to school and college there and worked for one year before getting married and moving to the Dooars. Yet when I go there I don’t know the city as well as I should know my home town. It doesn't seem as if I understand the layout of the city at all. That changes – or it seems to - every few months. There are new buildings everywhere. New flyovers come up, necessitating new intersections, U-turns and approach roads.

And then there is the Delhi Metro that has sliced up the city. Some roads, intersections and even buildings have vanished. Still, it is something I admire. I love seeing the stations, the escalators, and the trains arriving every two minutes. Delhi's people are making good use of the Metro service. It is the one thing that has helped me to feel a little independent when I’m there. It's freed commuters from hours spent in traffic which never seems to move, and from bargaining with auto drivers or paying criminal amounts to hire cabs. I was always comfortable in the Ladies' Compartment, right up at the front of the train. I revelled in the Arctic air-conditioning of the train itself. A Metro Rail Card freed me from long queues at the ticket counter. I could go to places like Dilli Haat, the sprawling crafts bazaar, directly by Metro. I could make meeting points with friends or with my brother who would always have a car waiting to pick me up at a Metro station in the less crowded parts of Delhi.

The overhead Metro line is a bit of an eyesore, though. It's sad to see it going past my old college. One can’t see that lovely building from the road any more.

'Running house' (my daughter’s flat) was great fun in Delhi. I enjoyed having the kitchen all to myself. Oh the audacity of being able to go out and buy what I wanted only when I needed it! No stocking up on potatoes, onions, oil, eggs or sugar for fear of being caught up short. Here on the garden the bawarchi and I buy stuff as if we're preparing for a siege. His lists look like detailed horoscope charts, long and scroll like as they are.

For many years, my husband and I longed set up house and live in Delhi. We thought it would be so romantic. Madness? Not really, because the Delhi we remembered from childhood was quite another city; it stopped in the eighties. We longed for a life free of all the complications or 'jhamela' of living in a tea garden. What little grass grows there in Delhi always seems greener to us.

(Published in The Camellia magazine)