Gulmohar Park

When into the womb of time everything is again withdrawn chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upon which reality is written. (Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer.)

Deepak outside the pastry shop

The police van was parked across the road from where the dead body lay as if poised for a quick getaway. There was a lull in activities when I walked into the crime scene; it transpired later that it was the break when everybody awaited the official police photographer. That nameless guy whose thankless work accompanies mostly requests for identification plastered across electric poles and garbage bins, those one-by-one column news in daily obit pages with bloated faces, sallow skin under eyes puffed shut. Two young cops stood watching the corpse incredulously as if silently interrogating it – why here of all the places in the NCR? It was Hauz Khas, next to Gulmohar Park. Amitabh Bachchan stayed here. No emendations to the FIR was going to be encouraged; you couldn’t palm it off either even if you managed to trace the transporter vehicle via CCTV to the adjacent circle. In short, sleep was leaving their clouded eyes faster than summer daybreak in the capital.

An Afghan heritage

It’s the second summer since I moved into the area – a small room with an attached toilet, a sink and gas cylinder masquerading as kitchenette. The same rental money would have gotten me three bedroom apartments in outlying Noida, Gurgaon or Dwarka, even two beds in those tumbledowns behind the veneer like Malviya or Gautam Nagar, Yusuf Sarai or Green Park Extension. But my decision to take up the gilted pigsty was sealed due to its proximity to centres of culture and learning and a paramour nearby. Till recent it was a godown for books and boots, served as the occasional gymnasium and a den for me to repair to when the fighting got ugly. ‘Why don’t you go to your pigsty?’ She would hint subtly. In the protean contours of an intense relationship, when one of you is bipolar, it doesn’t take long for solutions and suggestions to become habit. Now it is a full-fledged pigsty, only early for grunt and squeal. Captain Cooker stands in full attention though.

A sultry morning in June, I am walking to the Gulmohar Park with my phone and a book; being at the cusp of weathers I am pyretic as usual and convalescence gives me new eyes.

I stumble on…Deepak

“From the shape of the body it looks like it was inside the booth of a small car for long,” I told the photographer who had just arrived. His Hero Splendor motorcycle was parked behind the police van in the right pecking order. He walked around the dead body which was curled into a tight foetal position and busied himself taking photographs from different angles and ignoring my attempts at playing detective.

“No way,” he answered. Click, click, click.

He turned the body around – the rigor mortis making it move like one of those robotic dances you see in so-and-so got talent shows – for a closer view of the face. I could already see the thoroughly unrecognisable face on pink coarse paper slips with ‘request for identification.’ But this is just fulfilling the de rigueur of police protocols, don’t know if any good came out of it. Unless maybe as a proof of kill for the murderers. The jeans pocket bulged with a sizeable wallet which I pointed out to the photographer.

“He has his wallet still on,” I pointed out.

“No way,” the photographer replied. Click, click, click. 

A leafy getaway

A cop came and relieved it with some difficulty – the cadaver wore a fashionably tight pair. Rummaging through the contents the Aadhar card was found with some currency notes. ‘Deepak,’ the name said. Just Deepak. Nothing before, nothing after.

“Some Deepak,” the cop announced over his radio. “Yes sir, Deepak,” he repeated. He looked at the shops around him. “Location…pastry shop, sir.” He pressed the transmitter button on his half-duplex radio.

“Deepak…outside pastry shop…” came a measured voice from the other end of the walkie-talkie almost like allotting the dead one a new identity, a new fate, a new set of fatal circumstances, foregone reasons to live, to love, zodiac alignments, ID papers, address, station in life, family background, education and job.

A new life.

The mosque of Darwesh Shah and tonsils

Pant. Rant.

Pant. Rant.

Pant. Rant.

While held up behind groups of walkers who spread across jogging tracks I overhear emerging patterns. A kind of regimen for these lifespan enhancing regiments. The litany of ailments huffed out comes as a justification of sorts for the vast number of clinics dotting the area, any tony area in South Delhi for that matter. Minor annoyances from tonsillitis, runny eyes and allergic wheezing to major embarrassments like a car not upgraded for long are discussed in these walking forums. No ailment is minor enough not to be foofarawed over nor a misfortune trivial enough not to be bescumbered. I think along with the sweating out, the venting is also good as nothing is then left to clog your arteries – or your mind. The outcome is, hopefully, a long life. One that is unaffected by and oblivious to the death and ennui, meaninglessness, frustration, grief and disaster just round the corner.

The mosque of Darwesh Shah

Like in most parks of Delhi where you can feel the green and glow in the shade, where the tales are real and shadows give good company, the Gulmohar Park too dates back to the Afghan invaders. More specifically to the Lodi dynasty of Afghans who ruled Delhi for 75 years from 1451, a period marked by a lot of grand buildings and grander parks. The Darwesh Shah mosque here is an unimposing one, lying low beneath the flung canopies, exuding an air of quiet dignity, a sublime sobriety. While not much is known of the namesake, it is assumed that he is a nobleman who held an influential position as the mosque itself is next door to Siri Fort, the seat of power of the Khiljis. On a raised platform, the east and west sides of the mosque has seven recessed arches while the north and south has five. The Mihrab, the point nearest to Mecca, on the west wall is flanked by two minarets. Inspired not by a will to browbeat or impress but benign afflatus, by the looks of it.

As the day progresses, the historical grounds become TikTok backdrops – what looks risible with exaggerated gesticulations and lash-laden eye winks could be Kitu Goswami ripping another chart topper. Luddites like me make Boomerangs here a little ludicrously and decide not to Insta it at the last moment. Some ‘art of living’ clone has set up camp inside a covered area in the park and exhortations to inhale and exhale slowly can be heard over the portable announcement system. Everybody is allotted a certain number of breaths; the same-old spiel goes. I still hold my breath when I hear that. A madman sits on a bench outside. A fleeting look shows he is doffing his shoes and socks – a colourful, knee-length pair – on one leg. Things are fine. Look a little longer and you see he puts them back on and takes it off again. Things are fine. He is muttering under his breath, his lineaments show a seriousness of purpose. Like dictating the concept of immense chaos from where everything comes, the great churning that moulds. The great storm you sift through before understanding dawns. Obviously, it isn’t doxology he is ranting as there is a certain atomic frenzy. Besides, god is on the other side. Our eyes meet and he smiles at me like a bestowing. Of camaraderie, recognition, understanding, kinship, sympathy, joy, bonding. Of sharing and appreciation, affinity and strange consolation. 

By benign afflatus

Passing by the pastry shop on my way back to the pigsty, I look at the spot where the dead body lay earlier that day. The space is now occupied by a fruit vendor in a pushcart. He takes my look as interest in his wares. He beckons me with his hands, the welcome motion continues with his eye which then roves over the shiny apples and loud yellow mangoes. There are supple peaches, soft dent pomegranates, green bananas and exotic strawberries in little cartons. To add to the attraction, he has decorated the fruits with glimmering paper swirls. Too much colour and brightness even the swarming flies are kept at bay.

Business, as usual.