Delhiwale: Kohra and cold

A poem on the city’s fleeting season.

“120 flights delayed. 53 flights cancelled.” “Chaotic Sunday at Delhi airport.” “Travel chaos in Delhi.” “No respite.”

Delhi is in grip of extreme cold

Such are the headlines these days. The heart goes out for frequent fliers—what an irritant to them this wintertime Delhi fog. The same kohra, though, is a muse to others, who confront life’s periodic chaos with an artistic fervour.

Last week, citizen Jonaki Ray, who enjoys a day-job at a Noida multinational firm, was inspired enough by the fog to write a poem on Dilli ki sardi.

She agreed to share it with us.

The Bonfires of Necessities

The sienna-bluish fog-smog-air is turning shadows to nightmare-beasts

and the buildings ahead into jagged peaks. The radio is broadcasting

rising prices, war, accidents, and all that’s wrong with the world.

The guards at the gates shiver in their thin jackets, heads

muffled in scarves, hands stretched as if begging from the bonfires they have built

from twigs, yesterday’s newspapers, and empty egg cartons.

On one side of the road, group of women squatting—

their red and black lehengas like upturned umbrellas around them.

Oblivious to the stares and honks of people passing by,

they eat their chapattis and sabzis, before wrapping

up the leftovers and heading back to the construction site.

All the houses are barricaded, the residents safe inside the ‘colonies’.

The gates of the bungalows with their trellised balconies and iron gates

seem like eyes watching as the women get back to piling bricks on their heads.

Across the road, a woman walks by, a large, striped bag almost replacing her

her head, her pencil-thin arms and legs scaffolding the bag, like a stick drawing.

Someone has scribbled on the wall by the side, “Need a good divorce lawyer?”

and a phone number below. Mist curls around, glazing the buildings, school, cars,

huddled children in uniforms, and daily commuters in their non-uniforms uniforms,

a sienna-bluish hue. Inside the autorickshaw, its three wheels spinning as if unraveling the

scenes on the road like a movie, the driver and I cough in perfect synchronicity.

He looks at me in the rear-view mirror and says, “It’s the one bidi a day I smoke—

it kills my hunger, so I keep smoking”. He pauses,

as if waiting for me to confess my vice in return.

I stay silent.