Breathtaking Delhi – quite literally?

Never in my dreams would I have thought that the city to which I belong would be of any significance to me, let alone it being the defining component in people’s opinions of me. Yet I spent one whole semester in a potpourri of cultures, hearing the same sentences over and over again. “Are you from Delhi? You don’t look like it. ” Ab main sar par tag laga ke ghoomun kya ‘Made in Delhi’? Anyway these were the nice observations I heard about my relation with the city. Well, that is how I like to see it anyway. One other was “When I was first introduced to you I never thought we’d ever speak again, you know with you being from Delhi and all.” I certainly did not know. But the one that took me by surprise the most was “People in Delhi are crooks, criminals, immoral, arrogant, spoilt, narcissistic, selfish …” and you get the general idea. On further inspection I discovered that it was not an individual opinion. In fact, a large part of the Hostel population agreed and moreover added adjectives to the above list. If I was offended by the earlier remarks, it was nothing as compared to what I felt after this inspection. A cannon of insults on their cities (all based on real facts…well mostly at least) almost fired from my mouth, when I caught myself just in time. I did not want to get into this blame game. Wasn’t I raised to believe that your city, looks, language and other such ascribed identities were indeed kind of pointless to begin with? Didn’t education dictate that these identities and their corresponding stereotypes hold no place in today’s cosmopolitan world? For the fear of getting into a fruitless argument (a fear that was coupled with the fear of the numbers against me) I dropped the point.

Then came the fateful December of 2012. The national capital was left scarred forever, its history blackened while its future appeared bleak. The Delhi gang rape pierced the heart of every Indian. Eyes filled with despair, fists clenched with fury, people took to the streets. However, this did not stop other similar incidents to find their place in the morning headlines. Nevertheless the struggle for justice and the fight for a safer future for women continue even today.

As expected the bitter accusations returned in an increased vigor, supported by this fresh fuel. Now all Delhites became inhuman rapists. Silence aur education gaye ghaas charne! I’ve had enough!

Sure Delhi has had its huge share of wide ranging crimes. Agreed that it is not safe for girls to walk alone on streets in broad daylight. What you forget though is that it is only one section of the people that cause this mayhem, a phenomenon which is prevalent everywhere. A few a**h**** that deserve to be publically whip lashed carry out their revolting actions in every place but in different ways. They are the parasites that having once infected the land, try to suck out all hope and humanity.

But if you start to consider every single person who has had the misfortune to have had perhaps shared the same metro, bus, restaurant etc with these people, no wait, these fungi, to be like them, then sorry to say you need a brain scan. Trust me, it would do you and the rest of the world loads of good.

If instead of wasting your limited faculties on looking for new demeaning adjectives for Delhi in the dictionary, you had spent some time reflecting objectively on the matter you would have noticed that the issue is not about a particular region at all! It is about the ENTIRE SOCIETY. In the ENTIRE COUNTRY. In fact, the ENTIRE WORLD. Some general knowledge would tell you that some parts of the country have low sex ratio; others have gender inequalities in educational levels. Some parts of the world dictate women on what to wear; others may judge them on the color of their hair.
And these can be changed only by the people, the society and most importantly the “rational, educated and tolerant” youth. But sensing that some of these reign holders are suffering from pitiable narrow-mindedness, I am left in gloom.

Regionalism is stupid. Finding refuge in blaming is stupider. I do not seek to defend Delhi by speaking of its past glories or by pointing out the follies of others. That would make me the stupidest. Delhi may be overcrowded, "breathtakingly" polluted and unsafe, but no one suffers it more than the people who experience it. Yet we hold our heads high in face of cruel scrutiny by fellow Indians, simply because Delhi is home.