It was the last unread mail, something that ended my day on an introspective note. Thankfully it was a mail, so I got some time to answer it. If I had to face the question verbally, I’m sure I would have been flabbergasted. “Who is a typical Delhi-ite?”       

        Ahem! In schoolbook theory -- This is the capital city of a country with so much cultural diversity, so many religions & a million scams. The Delhi-ites are not from one community, instead are a concoction of sorts. More like pieces of a large kaleidoscope, where everybody wants their piece of capital tailored to them. There is no formula, no rules, no boundaries; just plain & simple self-expression. Probably that is why we love/hate this place so much. Let’s not ponder of the negative points too much.

 
        Now who is a typical Delhi-ite???
 

        You could say Delhi-ites are just shaken not stirred, like a colourful ice-cream sundae. All the ingredients are essential & taste different & look good, distinctively different in one glass. Too much stirring can really make the mishmash look muddy.

        This is a city of very brave people. People who brave the heat, the dust, the severe winter, terrorism, price hike, the drought, the pollution, traffic, road rage, power cuts, water shortage and a very dirty river. But Delhi(zen)s are so tolerant that you will rarely find people taking to the roads in protest. If this was in kolkata there would be a bandh every Mon, Wed, Fri. I think this tolerance or complacence is a kind of rebellion in itself. Maybe a silent satyagraha to have a typical identity.          
 

        Delhizens love the city dotted with quaint tombs & mausoleums which has history written on its walls. So what if all they can’t make Taj Mahal, the Mughals did inspire the Delhizen to freely express their love lives. The ‘he loves she’ love stories carved with knives and geometry box tools, on the historical walls, cannot be wiped off by mere mortals and will become eternal.

         Delhizens love the pigeons flocking at the traffic intersections. People actually feed them grains to create a deadly distraction for the traffic. Talk about the pedestrian’s revenge. Besides if a pigeon hit you, how would identify which one to shoot? Tell me, tell me? Clever isn’t it?

        Delhizens love greenery. So they lurrrv to flock en masse to picnic on every visible green patch. Forgive them their forgetfulness as they leave back some garbage while they wind up their chunnu, munnus, pinky and sweetys from the India gate lawns. They realize that it is VIP area and THEY CAN SEE SEVERAL SWEEPERS TO CLEAN UP BEHIND THEM. Hrrrmph!

        They also love festivals. Festivals are an occasion to flock, beat drums and blaring Bhangra music late into the night. So late that you will give up idea of sleeping. And so loud that you can very well have a party at your home even miles away from the venue. That too free of cost.

        Anything free is worth a grab. A free look at anything, the new cars or the models should not be missed at any cost. So year round sales are a good exercise for them to keep running between malls, in flocks of course...

        Even art exhibitions & plays are good for people to flock and be clicked for page 3 --- I came, I was seen, I was considered hip.   

      
        Some of the Delhizens even live in flocks. The names of localities are a give away. For Punjabis---punjabi bagh, Kkrawl bagh; kashmiris----Rajouri garden; bongs ---- chit-tow-rawn-jone park; southies-----raama-krishnaa-poorum.

        But there are other birds who like to mingle. ‘Maaiiind you’ Bengali market has 1% Bengali, kashmiri gate has no connection with kashmiris, instead had the oldest Bengalis. New friends colony has 5 mt high boundary walls around each house. How they make new friends! My mother’s says, “Everyday they make new friendship with the same old people, coz they meet them & forget them, meet them & forget them. So they always are new friends, ha ha ha.”

        Maharani bagh! hmmm wonder if there is any maharani there! The maharani of animal rights? Maybe! The esplanade in another city is an esplanade. But in Delhi daryaganj, paharganj, andrewsganj are no where near any river bank(ganj). It would be apt to call them Pahar ganja(bald), darya ganja etc. The city is either sorted on community or on money. The super rich of Motibagh, with 5mt high fences to the bourgeois of Sarojini nagar with no fences at all.

 
            There is one more way of identifying their ‘shaken’ behaviour. The potent fear of every Delhi-ite is to loose his regional identity. All the southies & bongs will first open a temple. Ayyappan temple & a Kalibari. Then have loads of cultural functions there. (Most of these people feel they are really parched due to the lack of enough cultural activity). Marriages are impossible without a temple. Then southies will open a madras café and Ramakrishna stores. Bongs will open a sweet shop & a fish market. The northerners will first open a beauty parlour, video parlour, & a ‘Bar-be-quee’ shop. (Most of these people are really parched due to the lack of enough tandoori murga). Aiyoo not muruga.

 
            All communities are not so well knit. Maybe they are not so fond construction. So we have one jagannath temple for the oriyas. Marathas haven’t yet spread the fever of ganesh puja to the same level as the bongs have done to Durga Puja. They will quietly go to the Mavalankar Hall for their M.M.M functions. (It’s the Marathi association) don’t know the full form. Sounds like James Bond-exasperated emmm emmm emmmm!!!! Jest kidding.

        Apart from these individual pockets of people sorted by their community, there are some places truly Cosmo. I for e.g. Live in a Cosmo housing society, which is sorted on job. The entire satellite township of Delhi is filled with housing societies like this. We refused to stay in a Bengali colony. I don’t know why but it didn’t sound very inviting to my mother. People in my colony have 2 common languages, English & Hindi. Most of the new generation marriages are mixed marriages. In my friends group there are representatives of diff states, bong, Tamil, telugu, mallu, kannad, punju, garhwali, UPite, bihari. Even from diff religions. So we end up celebrating every religious function together. We have Durga Pujas, done by south-Indians & biharis & sardarjis.

        In the next decade or 2 there will be an original Delhizens’ generation who is neither Punjabi nor of any particular community or religion. But I’m sure he’ll have a lot of identity crisis among other vernacular states.   

         I guess that sums up a Delhizen. My 30 -year ka experience with Delhizens has been pretty good. They are good friends, quite helpful but non-interfering. Well not all people who live in Delhi will call themselves a delhi-ite. Not even all those who are born here. Rather they fumble and say, “I am a global citizen.” It’s a strange fallacy. In the tussle of cultural differences between the family & society, family will win.  

 
         But there are also some exceptions who stand out in this potpourri. Whatever it is they still have a very typical identity.

I call them truly Delhi’s global citizen. You will see them often in Delhi. They have qualities of people from around the world. And that is their typical characteristic.

 
‘Maaiiind you’ I am not making any general statements on the masses, but a few outstanding people who always catch my attention in this pot-boiler. If you look around even you will meet these people in Delhi.

 
I call them my favourite Delhi-ites cause they make my life here really interesting. Am I delhi-ite.

So far I have managed to keep my identity intact but still feel I myself am fast becoming a strange concoction of sorts.  It is difficultnot to Love Delhi ots people.
I can hear history laugh -- Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

 
End notes on Typical Delhi-ites with no offece to fellow Delhizens

Qualities they picked up from the Bollywood

• Loud in attire & speech. Mostly like to wear extremely tight clothes.
• Men have a penchant for tucking their usually branded t-shirts, in their jeans along with a broad black belt with a big buckle. Will definitely wear jewellery on their wrists. Will definitely go to the GYM & Sport 25’’ biceps.
• They make their own fashion statements. They always dress for the occasion. For eg. When they go to a rock show --- they will pick a t-shirt, which says Iron maiden or Led zeppelin.
• At a Remo Fernandez show the crowd actually asked him to sing Daler’s song.

Qualities they picked up from west
 

• They will go to hard rock pubs & insist that the DJ play & punj pop over their tandoori chicken. (they love Indian stuff)
• Women love Lipstick, lipstick & lipstick. Darker & thicker the better. It goes for perfume & make-up as well. More & more.
• I think they brush their teeth & apply lipstick simultaneously. Once one delhiite woman told me -- lipstick is their “suhag chinh”. CORNY. What was their suhag chinh a few decades back? I wonder.
• They love shopping specially in expensive markets, but will never disclose the shop’s name unless it’s a designer outlet.

There are some more real gems

• They think that their language is the ultimate guide to good vocabulary.
• Will always go for the sales around the city.
• Are not interested in sports much other than cricket. They have their own sports, the movies. They will go to movies even if they have to spend a fortune.
• They will never mention where they went for a holiday, unless it is Switzerland, Bangkok, Disneyland or Singapore. They have a penchant for exotic places.
• Will always punctuate sentences with --- BC, MC, MF in hindi & f!!!! sh!!!! beelaady in eng. Style hai.
• Will always use “na” or “hai na” as full stop, comma, question mark, exclamation mark.

Qualities they picked up from texas movies?

• Will never give way to an ambulance on the road.
• Will never stop honking.
• Will never be able to complete an entire sentence in one language. Will prefer khichri language. Mai god meri to dath hi ho gayi.
• Favourite pastime of men is ogling, leering & salivating at women & scratching crotch.

• Most refrain from daily bath & use expensive nauseating perfume instead. Akin to most Europeans. “Head bath” is only for weekly cleansing. Will stare with disbelief if I said I take minimum 1 headbath every day.

Qualities they picked up from other asians?

• They love everything that is western.
  

Some other interesting people I met

• Occasionally they will be found “Paaroing Murga” on the sly, at roadside tandoori shops. But this variety will treat guests at dinner with only bhindi & tinda & karela.
• Believes all fish eaters (Bengali) are criminal. I wonder if they know that fish scales are used for making lipstick.
• They think vegetarian food is paal-k p-neer.
• Will try to eat pizza with fork & knife. Masala pizza with tandoori chicken toppings.
• Will carry decks when they go to serene bird sanctuaries & play loud music there scaring away whatever little bird life there.  
• Love to leave their signatures on trees.

 
Some more personal experiences of living as a Bengali in the capital city.
 

• Most people have a definite problem in distinguishing bet the 2 syllables “O” as in coke and “O” as in cock. So when ‘Kajol’ shud be “O” of coke i.e. “kaa (maa) & jole (pole)” they will say

   “k-jwawll”.

And ros of rosogolla shud be “O” of cock i.e. “rosh (Wash) O (oh) gol (goal) la (lah) they will say

       “row-show-gull-la”. They even claim it’s a hindi word. Nerve.
 

• Will never be able to pronounce scooter, station, specially as one word. Its Sa-kuter, sa-teshan, sa-peshally.
• Will always greet us Bengalis with. “Tumi jol khabo” or “tumi pani peebo” & a wide grin. I don’t know what it means. Both are wrong & very funny. I think they try to show that they can speak bangla.
• Are dead sure rather cock sure that “bangla is not a different language” but a “distorted version of hindi”. So they will constantly try to explain the correct pronunciation of a bangla word in the hindi way.
• They call the harmonium “baaja”. They come to learn that from my mother, “hame sa re ga ma nahi seekhna. Sirf baaja bajana sikha dijiye.”
• They call my tanpura -- “sitar”.
• Some girls even came to me to learn dance. I said I could teach folk & basics of oddissi. They said, “no didi, teach us party dance. U go to a lot of parties na.”

 
Now whenever I meet a Delhi-ite who grins “Ami machhi khabo.” I simply nod “Go ahead”.