Home is a foreign place

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness"

Dickens, my one true love, comes to mind, so often in the city I now call home... As a child I had visited it and looked around in wide eyed wonder. The city famous for its chicanery and power made a dent in my little heart a long while ago. I remember wishing to be a part of it. A strange wish for a 10 year old.

Delhi, like truth, or like a diamond, has many facets- ugly and beautiful. It has many seasons- clear and distinct. It reminds me with each passing day that it is a truly transient world that I live in. In the city of wide streets, show and pomp, chicanery I have discovered parts of myself and strengths that I have come to cling to. I discovered a capacity for peace, for industry, for endurance, acceptance and for love that has reached past my body, my thoughts, my heart into some part of me that I hadn't known existed. It is here, that for the first time in my life, I felt myself coming apart like a braided edge of a shawl, the threads reaching everywhere. Delhi has seen me at my best and at my worst. It has let me flourish and contained my soul. In it I have learned to love with abandon and now to wear an armor of caution so that no one or nothing can pierce my heart.

I have found new friends, strangers, dogs who knew nothing beyond what I chose to display (which was really just an ointment face or a beaming smile) show strange affection and concern bordering on love, going out of their way to bring a smile on my face. In this city known for manipulation and power games, ironically, I learned to trust, based on what I sensed (may be one day I will rue it bitterly or maybe not).

Maybe Delhi, and everything in it was fate. I have felt despite my occasional sense of aloneness, I feel a door has opened- to the palace of illusions I dreamed of. A world of flux and change. A long time ago I lived in a fort with comfort, ease and protection- a little princess. Yesterday I lived in a palace of illusions, today I walk the road of changing seasons hoping winter is close and trials by fire will soon be done, tomorrow, who knows? Delhi, I say to myself. You've taught me a lesson, and you've taught it well.

Beyond the dark of my only window, a pale yellow moon hangs in the sky. What mysteries are hidden behind his pockmarked face? Time is perhaps a master player. But within the limits allowed to humans in this world that the sages call unreal, I will be a player too....