Chiragh Dilli
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Where do smells go?
It's earthy and sweet, I’d probably say if someone insisted that I describe the smell of Bhubaneswar. Over the course of returning to the city, again and again, I have tried to deduce the components of this tangible yet elusive smell, much like how I reconstruct the ingredients and recipe of a dish I’m tasting for the first time. A handful of coconut trees, a dash of the not-too-far-away and not-too-close-by sea, a sprinkling of the melancholic gangasiuli, a smattering of lush and partly trampled undergrowth, and mildew according to taste. And the main ingredient—generous dollops of red laterite soil, colloquially known as mankada mati, lit. monkey soil, possibly a reference to the bright red colour of rhesus monkeys’ bottoms! This essay traces loss and longing through the smellscape of a city in the course of imagining and remembering it through memories and of traversing it through its transformations.… Continue reading Where do smells go? →
Mumbai, my not-quite love
Can discomfort and detachment—detachment not as a practised intentional stance but as simply the inability to form an attachment to or not-quite belong in a place—also be a way of seeing? A way of seeing that does not necessarily have to be made of disdain and indifference for the unfamiliar but one that is calibrated by curiosity, uncertainty, and the lightness of not-quite-knowing. An essay on what not-loving a city opens up—as a mode of being, thinking, feeling, and, even engaging. … Continue reading Mumbai, my not-quite love →
The House of Dreams
If you’re walking near the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya in the neighbourhood of Nizamuddin Basti in Delhi, you might cross, but not notice, a grey door with a grey metal flower knob and no signage. If you are passing by on a Tuesday afternoon, you will, most likely, notice a group of children in descending order of height gathered outside the grey door. The children dart in every five minutes, running up the stairs behind the door that lead to the first and second floors of the building. They leave trails of chips, flowers, coins, plastic toys, and small footwear in their wake. … Continue reading The House of Dreams →
Auto-graphy
The shared auto in Bhubaneswar is a self-evidently polyglot space than any other place in the city, with the possible exception of a general class railway compartment. You also hear stories, like that of the battering, that you would rarely hear elsewhere. What is it about the enclosed space of a shared auto rickshaw that invites this willingness to expose oneself? I do not know. … Continue reading Auto-graphy →