As the odd-even scheme in Delhi ends after 15 days, I'm looking a lot more suspiciously at my red, Delhi-traffic-damaged car. It's not because it runs on diesel, although it does guilt you out when your 5-year old brings home a presentation made at school which says "I will only use CNG". It's not because my car, just after 50,000 kilometres and five years, is already ravaged by the signs of Delhi residency with a side mirror that has been hit too many times and is barely hanging on, and a bumper that's been bumped several times over. It's just that I haven't used the car for the last two weeks, and I'm having an affair with getting around otherwise.
I think the romance is in the people interactions, the proximity of human contact, of strangers sitting next to you and being able to overhear the music spilling from their earphones. How can you not feel connected to someone who loves Badshah's
Wakhra Swag as much as you do? Delhizens like me hadn't used public transport since we were forced to in college, and so when we came back to it, just the air-conditioning was enough to have us swooning. You overhear conversations and realize that some things don't change.
"So we had to buy a birthday present for her, and she only likes brands.''
"
Acha.''
"Ya, only Benetton type. So we have collected 2,000 rupees and we're wondering what to get her. She asked me where I shop and I thought, I only shop in Sarojini Nagar.''
They were speaking like we did when I was in college, and yet they all looked different. Some of them were in skirts which many of us were too chicken to wear when we used buses back then, and many were in work wear. As I looked at all of them, having just put my son to bed, and heading back to Central Delhi to meet my friends for dinner, I thought, I'm doing what women in New York and London do every night-I'm moving freely across my city, at a time and mode of my choosing. Yes, it felt good to stand there in my red lipstick and after-work wear, looking out of the automatic doors to the passing platforms of Hauz Khas, Green Park and feeling at one with the gang of girls giggling in the other corner. I also felt at one with the woman travelling with the little boy who kept threatening to throw up his food- yes, we are all women of Delhi liberated with the space that this one ladies' coach had given us. I got off at Jorbagh, and for a bit, just for a bit, was a bit wary of the emptiness of the platform just after 9. But I told myself this is no different from those empty stations you get off at in London, and sure enough, I was surrounded by
autowallahs badgering to cover the last mile.
Of course, what doesn't happen in London but does here is a walk being punctuated every 100 metres by a urinating guy. Or cars driving on the wrong side of the road, acting as if you deserve to be run over because you choose to walk for a while. Yes, even through my romantic, fuzzy-due-to-smog vision, Delhi wasn't ready to be a walker's delight. Maybe if it was, we wouldn't be the city of fatties that we are.
Walking and metro - they all have deadlines, and so I turned to app-based cabs for those other times. It was all new and exciting for me and so, in the spirit of green-ness, I said "yes" when my app suggested if I'd like to share my ride. After all, it sounded a little indulgent to tell my app that I do need all four seats to myself. But as soon as it announced my driver was arriving, my stomach growled. I wasn't ready to be that adventurous. I wanted to overhear conversations, but was I ready to make some of my own?
Stressed and sweaty in January, I saw two figures in my taxi's backseat. I ran and quickly belted myself next to the driver and pretended to be lost on my phone. Soon I realized that I needn't have worried, they were a couple at the back, lost in their own world and I once again took pleasure in discovering a world outside my own. As they got off at the mall, the new-age couple didn't feel the need to say "Bye" but I looked out and met their eyes - yes, we barely met and parted in a short taxi ride. I knew it wasn't going to be for me, but I imagined if I were younger, if I were more adventurous, I might do this so much more. It was green, it was cheap, and it held the promise of meeting new people in a city otherwise seen as hostile and creepy.
As the odd-even experiment ends, I realize that my affair may not last. My phone's photo gallery has a series of pictures of the sky, and the truth is that the horizon isn't as blue as I would have liked. The AQ or air quality index must have affected my IQ, or at least my EQ, because I think something's changed. After all, didn't Delhi come together and try to be nice for a change?
(Sunetra Choudhury is Editor, National Affairs, NDTV 24x7)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.