Walking across a street in Delhi is an ordeal. Bonne chance if you appear on the other side alive. People give you dirty stares if you land in front of their car and they have to stop for you, almost like they are doing you a favor. And you give a dirty stare back. In this country, on the other hand, people stop, wait for you to cross the road, and sometimes even pass on a smile. Freaky, eh? Funnily enough, I hate crossing roads here. It seems equivalent to performing for an audience who stands at the traffic signal, looking through the windscreens like you are on the television, measuring you up and waiting for that trip and fall. Uber entertaining an act, if I may say so myself. Like Jo from Little Women, I never know what to do with my limbs either, or even my face. Do you walk slow, fast, look down, look unaware?
In my city, people have no time for any of that. They jostle on their way to work or back or just anywhere. Everyone is more concerned about whether they are are going to be late for their appointments, if the other car is going to manage to swerve and miss the red light while they remain stuck in the synchronized pattern henceforth, or if the kids would still be awake by the time they do reach home. I know that a moment after I get the dirty stare from the unfortunate person who had to stop his car for me to cross the road, he will forget me. He does not give me more thought than he would to paramecium. And THAT is the most comforting thing about the dizziness-inducing, disillusion-fostering crowds of "Dilli", where everybody is a nobody and anonymity is so under-rated. I miss it.
