You Win, Delhi. You Win.

This Christmas, I made my way to Delhi, a place known for its traditional Christmas festivities, such as fat bearded uncles riding around in flashy vehicles while elves called Chotu do all the work at home. But I came here for a festival much bigger and better than Good Governance Day, i.e. the Delhi winter. Or as Bombay people like to call it, “Will six layers be enough or should I install a blast furnace in my chaddis?”

I bet all the North Indians are rolling their eyes at my excitement. But you have to understand that as a Bombayite, I’m still awed by the fact that I can spend an entire day outdoors and not lose half my body weight in sweat. It’s similar to the wonder you see in a Delhiite’s eyes when they come to Bombay and encounter mystical objects, like a functioning rickshaw meter.

The weather reports don’t really tell you how cold Delhi is. They may say “six degrees celsius”, but in reality, it’s so cold that when you wash your face, your nads shrivel up. It is so foggy that motorists can’t even see who they’re shooting at and have to rely on woofers for echolocation, like some sort of weird Haryanvi bats. Simply put, Delhi is colder than Amit Shah’s soul.

But none of that matters during the day when its raining sunshine and you can let it wash over you in one of the 26983 parks and gardens they have here. I visited Lodi Gardens, named after the famous Mughal emperor, Mr. Gardens. Again, all this greenery and open space might be commonplace for Delhiites, but I was walking around the place, all wide-eyed and drooly, like a dog who just entered a mansion made out of chewy slippers. I can’t help it. The closest thing I have to a garden in Bombay is a clump of dhania in my kitchen.

Lodi Gardens is a verdant expanse dotted with ruins that, even almost five hundred years later, have a regal air about them. They rise up before you, broken but proud, as if to say, “We were a marvel of our times. We were the PVRs and Nirula’s of the Lodi Dynasty.” The stamp of the kingdom is most evident in the intricate wall-to-wall Islamic calligraphy that says ‘Rajan Luvs Dimpy’ and ‘For Hot Time Call Reema She Is Cheapo Woh Pakka Degi’.

Lodi Gardens is also home to a variety of wildlife, especially the hormonally charged Homo sapiens that seems to reside behind bushes and walls, where it proceeds to deploy its tongue into the mouth of its mate and use it the way one would use a shovel to dig up buried treasure. Feel free to abandon all caution as you walk past these creatures, because they will not register your presence. A serial killer could pop up next to them and it wouldn’t matter. You’d just see the chalk outlines around their bodies the next day, the outline of his hands still fumbling with the outlines of her bra hook.

These species usually tend to be young, but yesterday I came across a uncle and an aunty well into their 50s, sucking face behind a tree. Think of the lovable old couple from Up, and now imagine the lusty Punjabi version of that. Most people would be put off by that sight, but as I watched Rajinder Singh make out with Rajinder Kaur under a blanket of glorious winter sunshine, their love soaring far and away from the shackles of social norms, I couldn’t help but think, “Ew, gross.”

This was followed by more thoughts that were mean and unnecessary, but also a natural reaction to old people making out. Things like, “Uncle, how is your neck bending that much when you have spondylitis? Aunty, don’t you have to rush home to shut off the pressure cooker? STOP FOOLING AROUND – DAAL JAL JAAYEGI!” (It’s stuff like this that’ll make sure I have no one special to fool around with when I’m in my 50s. Ah well, that’s what Thailand was invented for.)

And on that romantic, winter-y note, I wish you all a super new year. May you all find your Rajinder if you haven’t already, and if you have, then may you have fun traversing the vast terrain that is her polyester suit. On a serious note, you readers have been incredibly kind to me and I wish you nothing but happiness. Stay safe and have a good one. Or as they say in Delhi, “Meter se chal b******!”

(Note: This is my HT column dated 28th Dec 2014.)

Warning: Objects In Rear-View Mirror May Be Rubbish

Welcome to 2013. Or as a common reaction to the new year goes, “ZOMG IT’S 2013 ALREADY?? WHERE DID THE TIME GO? What am I doing with my life? Why haven’t I accomplished last year’s goal of sleeping on a bed of money, or of strapping on a jetpack and flying to my job as Freelance Jetpack Flyer?”

We react like this every year, as if time did something totally unexpected – like it was supposed to give us a foot massage instead. The panic is understandable. After all, my generation has seen Sachin retire, that kid from Home Alone is now thirty-two, and apparently a heroin addict, and our birth dates are closer to the ’62 Sino-Indian war, the Cuban missile crisis and the moon landing, than they are to the iPhone 5.

At this point, it’s easy to fall into the nostalgia trap, and reminisce about how much easier and nicer the world was in the 80s and 90s. And it really was, if you were Michael Jackson or Saddam Hussein.

But otherwise, nostalgia is overrated, especially if you grew up in India. Our GDP was about sixteen rupees, tucked away safely under Pranab Mukherjee’s monkey cap. Yes, things were cheaper – petrol was 2 bucks for a 100 litres – but what was the point? You could still only use it in a Premier Padmini, which was basically a chunk of metal held together with rust and hope, that could hit a top speed of forty-seven kilometres per hour if thrown off a cliff.

We also complain about how smartphones have made us detached and distracted, and that we can’t go two seconds without – oh look, a potato that looks like Arnab LOLZ SHARE PIC! Um, so like I was saying, no lament on the modern era is complete without a yearning for the good ol’ days, when placing an STD call meant taking three months off from work, plus an additional two weeks for therapy. And that was just to get a connection.

Then you dialled the number and approximately four years later, were connected to a system powered by an asthmatic rat on a hamster wheel. It was quicker to just take a train and visit whoever you wanted to call. The internet came in much later, and despite its basic, tedious form, was still pretty amazing. Those early days are the reason why so many men still get turned on at the sight of a pixelated hourglass and the word ‘buffering’.

I also don’t get people who romanticise train journeys. Yes, a lot of us took trains back in the day, because our flight options were limited to ‘expensive’, ‘more expensive’ and ‘Air India: We’ll fly you back in time’. But now, why would you willingly spend 20-odd hours in a confined space with chatty old people, kids who’ve just discovered their vocal cords, and newlyweds trying to suck face amidst this chaos? Also, why should I use train toilets when I can experience the same fun by asking homeless men to rub themselves all over me?

Then there was the phase that Bollywood went through in the 80s and 90s, described by film historians as “OH GOD WTF MY EYES MY EYES!” Every film had pretty much the same story: Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, she’s filthy rich, while his dinner is a pinch of salt extracted from his mother’s tears, the two fall in love, Goga Kapoor makes crazy eyes, and then, because this is a wholesome family film, Shakti Kapoor walks in and rapes whoever is available, after which Alok Nath dies.

We watched this tripe only because we had no other option. You could’ve put Amitabh Bachchan in a ballerina outfit and made him sing out Das Kapital in the original German, and we would still have lapped it up. (It would also have been less embarrassing than Lal Baadshah)

Even society seems slightly better now. All around me, I see people ignoring norms, bucking the trend and forging their own paths – like Indian traffic, minus the rage. Careers that didn’t exist ten years ago are now considered mainstream. (Although ‘Social Media Evangelist’ is not a real job. It’s like saying ‘Pixie Sandal Washer’, or ‘Entertainment Journalist’) I see more openly gay people around, and if there’s enough alcohol, I see some bisexual women too. All in all, it isn’t a bad time to be alive. Now can we please get started on those jetpacks?

(Note: This is my HT column dated 6th Jan 2013)