Passing Through

Delhi had made its temperature very clear, we pulled out the jackets. First order of things after stepping out of the airport was the metro. We got our tickets and stepped in.

We were the ones with the oversized backpacks, the look of people passing through rather than arriving. Every city has those people, the ones passing through on their way to somewhere that matters more. That morning in Delhi, we were those people. While Naviin stood there re-confirming the route, I was already setting the frame for the Instagram reel. We both had our priorities right.

The Delhi Metro does not ease you in. It picks you up and pulls you straight into the city without warning. One moment you are in the controlled quiet of an airport terminal and in the next, you are moving through a city. Loud and relentless for centuries, with no intention of stopping for you.

We decided to sit with the city for a while and not exhaust ourselves on the very first day. We walked through the buzzing streets of Old Delhi. The area around us was loud with honking vehicles layering themselves over the existing haze. We were near Chandni Chowk, one of the oldest wholesale markets in the country.

Chandni Chowk has been busy since the seventeenth century, laid out by Shah Jahan's daughter Jahanara Begum as part of Shahjahanabad. It was designed as a grand bazaar. There used to be a central pool at its centre reflecting the moonlight, and hence the name. Merchants once lined both sides selling silk, spices and jewellery to the Mughal court. The pool is long gone, the Mughal court followed it, but the trade and the noise remain in the way only Old Delhi can be. Today it is known for its iconic street food, clothes and electronic markets.

The last time I was in this market was to shop for my wedding lehenga. As a South Indian bride to be, I had a craze for lehengas. I convinced my family for a Delhi visit just to choose one. Standing in that same street now, I was mildly surprised to recognise someone I used to be, the girl who had flown 1200 miles to buy a wedding outfit.

She wanted the grand version of everything. The wedding, the life after it. I would not agree to any of those perspectives now. Her eyes were full of dreams. Mine too, but entirely different ones.

I did not want to step inside the market this time. Those shiny dresses and accessories did not pull me in. The old red building on the opposite side did. I crossed the road to see a historic charm, with the tricolour flag flying high in the smoky cold air.

It was a weekend. Red Fort had the crowd to prove it. We just sat there and stared at it from outside, like clueless wanderers. I did not mind. I spent the time watching people, storing faces and gestures.

Red Fort does not need you inside it to make itself felt. Shah Jahan built it as the seat of Mughal power in the seventeenth century. India's first Independence Day address was given from its ramparts. It has held more history than most places are asked to carry. Most of the crowd outside had not come for the history.

Parents with children and extended families were all passing through. To them the monument was one stop among many. What mattered was the photograph, the proof of having been there. I watched a father arrange his entire family thrice before he was satisfied with the frame. A wife nudging her husband to click more selfies. The fort stood behind them, four hundred years of patience, entirely used to being someone else's background.

From there we hired an auto-rickshaw. The driver must have figured us out the moment he saw us, because he switched languages immediately and made us feel comfortable. When we told him our drop off point and the bus journey ahead, he offered a plan. To show us around before dinner. We had time to spare so we nodded.

He was more of a teenager, or a boy in his early twenties. While swifting through the traffic, he managed to name all the significant places we crossed. We handed him the important responsibility of recommending a hotel for dinner, which he did.

He dropped us off at the hotel with a caution note to be careful with our bags. Switching into alert mode, I looked up at the name board.

The hotel was the kind of place where you walk in, take one look around and agree with yourself not to have expectations. Dim lights, full tables, nobody asking questions. People were settled in like regulars. We were clearly not the only ones using it as a pit stop before the ISBT.

There were a bunch of Kerala travellers with backpacks as large as ours, all clearly heading to the same hills. We could recognise them. Same direction, same night ahead.

I was in the mood for rotis and paneer. The menu had other ideas. It was all dosas. Even the Kerala boy gang at the next table were having dosas and seemed very pleased about it. Wondering about the craze for South Indian food right in the middle of Delhi, we ordered masala dosas.

I teased Naviin about how that gang had the whole thing figured out, travelling with friends, no compromises, pure fun on their own terms. And here was Naviin, married, stuck with me as his travel partner, fun arriving on a more negotiated schedule. He took it well, as he usually does.

We had a solid fifty minutes before the bus and were already at the entrance of ISBT, the Inter State Bus Terminal, Delhi's largest and most unapologetically chaotic bus stand. If Chandni Chowk is loud by tradition, ISBT is loud by necessity.

People were preparing for a long night's travel. Comforting themselves with cigarettes near the tea stalls, and stocking up on water bottles. We found a stone bench, dropped our bags with the relief of people who had been carrying them far too long. Naviin went inside to reconfirm the platform number while I watched how the night began for everyone. A hundred different journeys, all starting from the same point.

The bus was late. Thirty minutes and counting. Outside, an endless procession of Volvo and semi-sleeper buses lined up to enter the terminal, one after the other, and it struck me just how many people were headed to the hills that one December night. It looked as though every restless soul in Delhi had collectively decided that this was the weekend for the mountains. Himachal gets this every winter.

I called the bus operator every fifteen minutes. He assured me each time that he would be there shortly. After thirty minutes of this, I was getting less assured and more annoyed. I refreshed a tracking link that did not exist and cursed the bus company's relationship with technology. Half an hour behind schedule, we got inside the bus somewhere around 10 pm.

The seats, to their credit, were comfortable, cosy enough to dissolve most of the exhaustion. Though I suspect the actual reason I stopped being annoyed was simpler than that. The trip had officially begun.