Summer has been good to me.
In spite of endless cooler breakdowns, no-water days, work going nowhere. There have been friends, far too many outings and a shutting-out of all of that eating me in the months before.
Summer, as always, has been an exercise in freedom.
Right now, it is just like Kolkata: the heat and humidity is just about bearable. Not so bad that you can't keep still, not so comfortable that you can relax and settle down.
And Dilli as the city which helped me rally, thanks in no small measure to ma and friends, but also because of what the city is, who woulda thunk. Is it an exercise in finding or losing myself? A bit of both, I suppose. The endless trips back home in autos after 10 (how I have thrown money around) looking at the night city, no one to tell you what to do, the man on the street who sits down at that hour for a drag, men who go to sleep on the pavement, men finishing up after work. And a blank in my mind: once it was happy, this return home after a full day, now it is just an absence of feeling, not knowing what tomorrow might bring. I am not complaining, just wondering what comes after this.
What a leveller it is to have ma and F, the groundedness, the feeling of home. Who knows what I might have done without them.
Yesterday, at Nehru Place: scouting for that rarity, apparently: a 2GB SD card for my camera. And IndiaFab for clothes, and dirt cheap books, bought from a slightly creepy, educated old man, who makes you wonder if he wants to fuck young women like me. Thence to Shahpur Jat in Panchsheel Park, a part of the city I hadn't been to before. L seems so un-European in his manner. I found myself liking him, and M, who I still don't quite understand, but like very much.
P leaves on the 28th, I feel so bereft, I can't even explain it entirely to myself. Our closeness has not been emotional: it is more robust. But the three days spent in their company, I haven't been this happy in a long while. I haven't relished the company of friends with whom I feel so at ease for a very long time, doing things I like to do. Friends, who, I suppose, accept me for what I am, one who knows me since the time I began thinking for myself.
One by one, all of them, the summer visitors, will leave. The season will turn again. Who knows what will happen then. I dread the news of a certain marriage, still. I am lulled into thinking that a phone call is the most normal thing, after I see a couple that works together, and then I tell myself that I have been lulled.
When the season turns, my sister-in-law will have had a baby. She has asked me to come, and I will go. But I do wonder what happens to me, though I have been schooling myself in the lesson to accept my life, whether it comes with coupledom or singlehood.
Right now, I am being a waster. I have told myself that I am not responsible for everything, that I am allowed a break till I get back on my feet and figure out what I am going to do.
It has not been boring, however. I have gone around Delhi, travelled with ma and dog for the first time, and am readying for another trip, with people I have met through another friend. Winter, apart from anything else, will be for travelling to warmer climes (Madhya Pradesh perhaps) and for seeing what I haven't of the city: more detailed old Delhi exploration (now you just become miserable and wild-eyed with the heat), including Qutb and Nizamuddin. I would like to travel more with ma if I can figure out a good place to keep F.
These days, we keep the main door open, with the metal door closed, to let in cool air. Another summer freedom, and a memory from very young days, when we stayed at Nivedita Enclave. It's weird, but I don't remember thinking we were not normal in any way, then.
