Get me more Choglet

Today is my off-day. I wait for it like I didn't in Calcutta. But a large chunk of every off day is ultimately spent in catching up with chores. I head out in the evening, to some market or the other and come back with a bag heaving with groceries. Not any bag, actually. It's Madhura's bag, the one she liked so much and the one which I'd said I'd courier to her but never did. I like it so much as well. And well, embarrassment, the usual stuff.
I like grocering, I like what the act involves: looking through the gleaming, fresh vegetables, asking the rates, looking for a bargain, picking up the new cheese, or ice-cream or sauce (I bought Plum sauce today. And it's not horrendous, I tasted.) what I don't want to give away to it is time and energy.
Here, doing something for myself more often than not means not doing something else I want to do or which needs to be taken care of. Buying a 3g data card recharge coupon today meant not going to Majnu ka tilla for momo,something I'd been mulling over through the week. Hurrying back for grocery meant no time to look for new cell phone. Wanting to relax after a bath in the evening meant no cooking, ordering in food, which still irks me right now.
The floors haven't been swabbed in weeks, I haven't yet gotten around to cleaning out the box bed and putting in stuff there. The bed sheet needs to be washed as well, likewise for the kitchen top.
Then there is home. There is trouble at home. That apart, I feel terrible about staying away from my dog. Sometimes I fear she is slipping away from me. I look at the photos of her, us and there's an ache inside. I feel guilty for not taking the white dog in. It seems he must have been a pet sometime, he keens towards people so. I love to hug him. There was one evening, when they had all come up to my flat. I'd given them biscuits. One had left, but the other two, including the white one, settled down outside, a black one on a landing below and the white one just outside the flat. I sat with him on the stairs with an arm around his neck. But I had to go in and cook, so I shut the door on him eventually. It's terrible to have to do that, terrible.
And Delhi. Well, I know it as a fact that I am living in Delhi, I am assured of the amenities the so-called capital provides, I speak to vendors and Delhi residents in office with an accent approximating theirs, I dislike, I tolerate, I often smile. But I don't think I inhabit the city. There is much to see here, I am sure, but it's so far beyond my periphery. It's a mental void, really. I'm grateful for the things there are. I like my flat and I like Jalebi Chowk, I like the sunshine on my balcony, I speak to the pigeons that sit on my neighbour's balcony and live in trepidation that the tenuous calm will be broken.
I've had no one up here, save C and a junior colleague and don't feel the need to. On this one day of the week, I want to be left alone. I'd only want to be with someone who'd leave me alone. That apart, the house is in a mess and there's too many things to do. Always.
I'm afraid I'm becoming like those Bengalis in Delhi whose mental space is so entirely filled by Calcutta that they speak of Shymambazar and flurry of real estate activity at Rajarhat as if they'd find those if they stepped outside their rooms, as if those were problems that affected them on an immediate basis. It does feel good that at least numerically there are so many Bengalis in Dilli. But that's it, really. I don't think we carry a common core that makes us happy to be together just because we are Bengali.
I bought fish the other day from Jalebi Chowk and the boys dressing the fish were Bengalis from Araria. But they spoke with such a strong accent there wasn't much you could identify with. Still, I was grateful. I suppose that does makes me sound like a crazy bag lady who scans the crowds for a Bengali face. I do, and often my guess is right, but that's about it. There's nothing more to look forward to on an individual level, save drawing a bit of warmth from an imagined commonality.