The End of A Road

It was one of those early winter evenings, when there are songs in the air for those who still listen in that dark hour and have the courage to bear the cold rush. We decided to go for a cycle ride, a few of us, to explore the labyrinth streets of Old Delhi. We hired some cycles from the metro station and off we went, directionless, to escape the tediousness of North Campus. A gentle drizzle wet the dusty streets clearing our paths towards oblivion.

Like uncertain birds, fresh from their nests, we went around in circles for a while, adjusting to the vehicles that slowly became a part of us. We went around Delhi University, speeding here, slowing there and stopping to have tea at certain dhabas. We led and followed each other, although all of us were purely driven by instincts; but we moved on passing cars and as cars passed us. We moved on even as night slowly began settling down in the streets. Then finally, one of us decided to break out of the circle that we’d been making for a while and off we plunged into the night.

After pedaling for a while, struggling uphill and speeding down slopes, we reached the ISBT station – one of the thresholds of Delhi, where tourists and locals were busy scurrying here and there, with heavy suitcases and rucksacks. Some who looked uncertain and yet alert were clearly fresh arrivals; those who looked hurried and tired were perhaps leaving the city. Yet from their faces, it was impossible to discern what they felt in their moments of arrival and departure. A rather noisy place, with endless buses driven by angry drivers, we quickly rode on from there.

After a heavy dinner by the Jama Masjid, comprising meaty dishes and kheer fit for sultans, we struggled our way out of that busy lane and into quieter parts of Old Delhi. We cycled on and on, with such speed and hurry that anyone who saw us probably thought we were either men of great purpose or, more correctly, a chain of lunatics. But the chances of being self-conscious on a moonlit night spread out on those narrow, archaic alleys were rather dim. So we glided on, as if possessed; now taking a sharp bend at the end of a street, now slowing down on a bumpy road.

A night in Old Delhi is enchanted. The same place that is overcrowded during the day is suffused with a deep somnolence by midnight. We rode on, half-expecting to be confronted by djinns. At the end of an endless alley, squeezed by dilapidating old buildings on either side, we reached a certain chowk and aligned along its pavements were flower-sellers with their baskets overflowing with thousands of marigolds. Trucks laden with the flowers were unloading them.

In the heart of Old Delhi, at that transient hour, the warm, wafting scent of the golden flowers was flooding the dark streets we had ridden on.