00:42 IST
The Downstairs Room, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

Went to Nehru Memorial Museum and Library today, also called Teen Murti Bhavan. It's in central Delhi, with its wide roads flanked by green and trees and pretty white and red houses. Twas a beautiful place. Open gardens with peacocks running about, well maintained grass, a canteen, flowers in bloom,  massive rocks with quotes by our famous leaders carved on them. One could just sit and read. I did exactly that. Walked out, crossed the busy roundabout road. Was helped by two policemen who stopped the cars so I could cross the road! (I'd like to think that). The roundabouts don't have traffic lights on them na.

Walked on the pavement for a bit. Had my period (first day) so didn't want to walk much. Waited at a bus stop for a bus to take me to the nearest metro station. A small white bus came along, the conductor yelled 'metrometrometrometro' just the way I wrote. I wasn't sure if I should get on, because it wasn't the regular low-floor/DTC bus. But on seeing a lot of people sitting I quickly hopped on. Reached the Central Secretariat metro station and took the metro till JLN Stadium. Got off, took an auto till Nizamuddin dargah. Twas a Thursday and a qawwali night and the courtyard of the dargah was jam packed. People everywhere. Sitting, standing, walking, hands spread out begging, hands folded praying, laughing, talking, clicking pictures. People thronged the space. All heads covered with caps/scarves. During namaz, the call to God, all heads pointed in one direction, all, heads bent in a single file in one direction. Twas a sight to watch. I am not sure I believe in religion. But this prayer, this oneness, it exudes from within us an energy. Every single fibre within our being is focused on one thought, or action. Every single fibre within every single person's being is focused on the same thought, or action. THAT creates a symphony - which is beautiful to watch. It happens everywhere - music is a great way to bring that energy out. In concerts, satsang. qawwali - any gathering with music, you will find that energy. I do not know what it is but it is beautiful being a part of it. But to be completely honest with you, I was waiting for the boi, the whole time. I wanted him to come to me, meet me, be with me. He gave me a glimmer of hope by telling me that he would meet me and he I blew that up into a fire of expectation. And I waited. I was atop someone's roof and looked down at every single face, waiting for him. But he wasn't there. I called and his phone was switched off. I was upset. And concerned. I called his friend who he was supposed to be with, but she didn't pick up the phone either. I waited for a while longer then left. Jostled my way outside and took a rikshaw ride till Jangpura metro station. Was stared at A LOT on the way. Was not flattered, a little scared in fact. Visions of acid played up in my mind. Reached my stop. Walked across a pedestrian overbridge and reached the metro station. Upon reaching, boi's friend called to tell me that he was with her throughout the show and left with her. I was hurt and upset and angry and confused. No idea why. I made my way home and tears kept welling up my eyes. I kept hoping to bump into him but that never happened. Funny how I completely lost track of my journey, and instead just wrote about my feelings regarding the boi. Not sure if this is good or not, but this certainly was the flow of thoughts. At least I'm honest. My sole redemption.

01:05 IST
The Downstairs Room, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

Spent the whole day in the house, on the couch. Read and watched half a film and Facebooked quite a bit despite promising self that I won't. Bad girl.

Had borrowed a couple of books from BCL, broadly based on travel, and have been reading them and truly enjoying it so far. One book is about women travellers to India in the colonial era. It describes the 'female gaze' of the European traveller in India during the British rule. Rather fascinating stuff, despite the heavy duty academic language. According to one of the chapters, the East India Company had two kinds of schools of thoughts - the ones that appreciated the Indian culture, and the ones that didn't. The ones that didn't dominated and changed the entire thought process of the Indians - belittled their art, their texts and their lifestyles, and worked on 'improving' their lives by teaching them the 'superior' ways of the British. The book, I'm guessing is about those women travellers who had a fascination for the country. The thing about reading writings on travel is, it is heavy on interpretation. Two travellers will describe a single place in different ways - their own cultural references, their own prejudices, their own personal approaches will come into play. It is hard to objectify a travel write-up. But travelogues are an extremely important document for recording history. The travellers of the past, with their coloured gaze painted strange pictures of the norms and culture of the people of India, and some of those views have managed to trickle over a passage of generations. This makes me feel rather uncomfortable at times. Views and opinions are such transient things. The British themeselves as a community were perhaps going through a period of turmoil in their own country, and brought that baggage with them to India. And if they planned to rule, they did horrific things and a bloody good job at executing them. Not good.

The second book is an introduction to Human Geography. Human + Geo + Graphy - writing about the earth, and the humans' interaction with the earth. SUCH a vast subject. But superbly interesting all the same. There is this globe, this planet that we live on - the earth. It is land and water and atmosphere and climate and action phenomenon such as volcanoes, typhoons, tsunami etc. We as humans, have done SO MUCH to it - we have broken it up and categoriesed it into countries, continents etc. We have created bounded spaces. We have identified and given things names - earth is called earth because humans say so. Same goes for river, trees, plants and further categorising it. We have discovered food in it and so many resources to create objects and machines and run things. We have created environments for ourselves - built environments or second nature and are on our way to creating simulated environments of third nature. We are crazy. There is so much scope in this subject.

Dadi - still not sure how to put it into a framework - definitely taking a human geography approach to it. Maybe will focus on her travels and the way she engaged with the space that surrounds her. Uffooooo. Excited :)

01:15 IST
Downstairs Room, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

I haven't written a thing in ages. And it is so silly of me, not to write, because I think of writing all the time. The thoughts stick on to me like lard. And I bloat. Yuck.

So I recently met a professor friend of mine who convinced me to pursue the Dadi Project as a formal research project - expand and set it into a framework to do a full-time PhD in it. Wow. I have thought about (so far)

- human geography - culture geography, psycho geography, historical geography
- mobilities
- gender studies (?)

I am yet to figure WHAT all this means :/

So I decided to get myself relevant books from BCL. And got two - Introducing Human Geography and Women Travellers of Colonial India. Quite excited to read them. Keeping fingers crossed that I DO read them. (I end up not reading most books. (Sigh)

Oh and before going to BCL, I got ready to go to BCL (hahahaha I'm so not funny). No, I took a long video of the people of the house. Dadi was sitting demurely on her chair by the phone and shouting a mobile phone number at the top of her voice to her deaf sister who refuses to wear hearing aid :/ Poor dadi was shouting and her neck began to hurt even more intensely.

I was also rather miffed at the boi. We had planned to meet and eat and watch a film and just be merry, when he called at the last minute to change it all for an exploratory walk in Old Delhi with his aunt. He asked me if I wanted to join. An exploratory walk in Old Delhi? And I have my little handycam. How the hell could I refuse!? Walking has been the only constant in my entire pointless existence of 26 years. It is just something I do, on autopilot, when I do nothing, which is pretty much all the time. It is rather liberating, the act of walking. Why? Well, there is a continuous movement of the limbs. It gives me a sense of going 'somewhere', even if I have no clue as to where that might be. It forces my senses to stay alert at all times - especially the walks in Delhi - traffic of all kinds just comes right at you from all directions. It heightens the hearing, sharpens the smell, focuses the eyes, sensitises the touch - or has the exact opposite affect on all. Depends on how you take it.

I am no historian, not even a history enthusiast. I simply enjoy walking - small alleys, busy markets, large ruins. I love touching the stones of structures, feeling the texture, recreating the space of grandeur of the bygone era. The space comes alive with snippets of stories of people from the by-default lovely companions I get. So today it was visiting Bulbuli Khan - an area of Old Delhi close to Turkman Gate. We went to look for Raziya Sultan's tomb. The fun gang met outside Regal Cinema, took an auto till Turkman Gate, took a rikshaw till Bulbuli Khana. Asked one of the shopkeepers for the tomb, and walked inside alleys that got narrower and narrower and narrower. The mausoleum was not a mausoleum because mausoleums are closed spaces. This one was open. Two tombs lay side by side upon entering a gate. There was a masjid as well (I forget whose now). Nice and peaceful. Lots of mongoose on the loose :/ I get scared of their long bodies and unfriendly eyes and constant hissing. Came out and boi started playing cricket with the young lads of the area. They play cricket within such narrow confines! Guess people, especially kids manage to find their little space of joy in pretty much any space. All a matter of adapting, and kids are beautiful at it. Stay a child in your mind. We wandered about, took pictures of alleys and streets and staircases and corridoor and bicycles and faces - lots of faces - half moon smiles and little O's of smoke and twinkling eyes and wrinkled brows. We had the ultra sweet bamboo juice. My tummy expanded. We waddled to Kalan Masjid - a mosque built by Feroz Shah Tuglaq, one of the rulers of the country at a point I can't seem to remember. The masjid was white and green. Very bright green. The green hurt the eyes. We entered through a bright green iron gate, up steep steps, into an open courtyard. Very pretty, very clean, very green. The space was completely empty. How lovely to have massive empty spaces amidst the chaotic drives of the area? We clicked around for a bit then went out. More shopping and meandering (I'm getting a bit bored of writing now) and through a series of events we made our way back to our respective homes. I love walking. That's the lesson of the day. Because before reaching home - we walked around Turkman gate. We walked from Regal till palika bazaar and then all the way to ashoka road, jantar mantar lane before finally reaching the metro station. I could still walk. I really do love walking.

Dadi talked. She enjoys it. Talking. She talked about gandi gully (must check it), why she introduced salwar suits as uniforms (uniformity honi chahiye aur practical hona chahiye. sari mein kahan aap galiyon mein aate firoge), there were no muslim students in her time. I didn't understand that bit at all. Why not? Was it because it was called Sri Lakhsmi  Girls Senior Secondary School? Lakshmi? And when I asked her why the school did not produce toppers like it used to in her time, she said that all the rich businessmen's daughters have left the area. Muslims have joined. Maybe I was not interpreting it right? But it left me feeling rather uncomfortable :/