Dilli, One Month Later

I reached Delhi on the first day of the last month of 2012, twenty days before the world was supposed to end. It did not, but private worlds of scores of people did, including that girl, variously named, Nirbhaya, Damini… and then, I froze… Was it a mistake to shift to the Capital of India, which also happens to be the place that breeds insecure men hell-bent on proving their masculinity by committing crimes against women? But, I shouldn’t complain; this was the idea, wasn’t it, to start all over again, from the scratch… At 35, it’s little unnerving, but what the hell, you have one life to live. And, Delhi will adopt me, it always have, history is the witness, from the days of Sher Shah Suri (I did a trip to Purana Quila, which was allegedly built by this conqueror)… I arrived in Delhi with just a bag (gifted by a dear friend; thank you, Hemant), and nothing else, not even a railway reservation, to a series of uncertainties. Fifteen days later, it was the gang rape that sort of took over my life (being in a newspaper isn’t a good life; things you have to do to eat), like the lives of scores of people in India, people who care. Once this died down, it was the middle of a frozen winter, the coldest day after 44 years, and the year ended, and I took strides to a new life. I got a house, some new friends (not all the way, of course, it will take time), and here I am, unfortunately, the same person… I like to think, I’m changing, but I doubt that…