Memories of Old Delhi
This book takes me back to Old Delhi…
I just finished reading Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day, a book set in India’s Old Delhi and telling the story of four siblings over several decades of the country’s turbulent 20th century history. It made me think of my own trip to India many years ago. I was mostly in Delhi and the city made a big impression on me - colorful, captivating, and chaotic. The landmarks flash before my eyes - India Gate, Connaught Place, Red Fort, Jama Masjid (Great Mosque), Raj Ghat, Qutab Minar… It was a strange visit where, in connection with a conference at the University of Delhi, I stayed in the Polish Embassy, my first interaction with the local was in Polish, and I experiences unique interpretation of Polish dishes with quite a bit more spice than I was used to.
In these challenging days of coronavirus travel feels like a dream, a distant memory. We need books to transport us to places we used to visit or dream of going to one day. In Desai’s story, Bim and her brother Raja as kids wander along the Jamuna [Jumna] river. That is how I also remember the outskirts of Delhi during the early summer days of my visit.
“There were still those shining summer evenings on the banks of the Jumna when they went toge ather, Bim and Raja, barefoot over the sand to wade across the river, at that time of the year no more than a sluggish trickle, to the melon fields on the other bank to pick a ripe, round one and cut it open with Raja’s pen-knife and bite into the juice-suffused slices while the sun sank into the saffron west and the cannon boomed in the city to announce the end of the day’s fast in the month of Ramadan and the start of prayers in the great mosque. At this hour the dome of the sky would soften from white-hot metal to a soft mauve tapestry streaked with pink. The washermen would fold the dried washing spread out on the sand and load it onto their donkeys and ride away. Smoke would rise from small fires in the hovels at the bend of the reaver and from under the thatch of the melon-growers’ huts, turning the evening air furry and soft. A lapwing would start out of the dark with a cry and a star wink into life simultaneously, it seemed.”
Until next time, hopefully in real life, Old Delhi!