Back to Delhi

After spending two eventful years in Mumbai, I have come back to Delhi hoping to spend many more eventful years. In no way was my return to Delhi "motivated" by the recent political and parochial events in Mumbai and Maharashtra although I was eminently qualified to be a victim as a Bihari as well as a "fortune seeker".
Delhi has it's shares of problems, perhaps much more than Mumbai: there are these horrible things they are doing to roads, entire roads are being closed for Metro, realigned because of Bus Corridor, new pavements are being laid; there is power shortage even in winter, seriously bad traffic. Girls are still being attacked in their homes by neighbours, men still pee on roads in broad daylight and people still think that everything can be bought with money, men still do not understand the need to queue up. The hindi word Jugad is still the operating principle of the citizens.
But the problems of Delhi are essentially existential - and in resolving them together is the effort of the Delhite to build a better future of herself/himself. Past has got very little to do with it. Present and future are what matters.... Where you come from [figuratively as well as literally] matters much less than what you are and where you are headed. This is where I guess it differs from the colonial cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai and now Bengaluru.... All colonial cities surprisingly run on pre-colonial sentiments of caste, race, sub-caste and identity and communitarian based society and politics.
It is indeed very surprising that the oldest city in India, Delhi, has the greatest collective urge to think of the future while the relatively youthful ones show a strong tendency to go back to some utopian and idyllic past... which actually never existed.
Why is this so? I do not know... But can guess: Delhi is a clever woman, she does not want to belong to anyone whatever the promises made.... She is suffered very badly for this attitude in the last 1000 years, but she still wants to remain free of emotional attachment.... While the others have tied emotional knots with many a suitor at different points in time and are now suffering from the claims and counter claims of each of the suitors.
I love your independence Delhi... Be that way and you will get the best of us seek your hand, although we know you will decline it with a wicked wink.

Ancient Knowledge and Modern Science

I have just finished reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everthing. Bryson is a prolific and very good travel writer but he deviates a bit in this book and writes about the travels and travails mother earth has undertaken to be where it is and also indicates where she is headed.
For me reading the book has been a humbling experience and a scary one too... from the size of the galaxy to the size of the bacteria that lives at 130 C, I have lost all perspective of size.
From the impact of a moon sized meteor crashing on the earth to the havoc that mutant strains of virus can cause, I have lost all perspective of fear.
From the fact that for the last 300 odd years "modern" science has just been trying to understand things to the fact that some of them have done more harm to us than the collective good scientists have done, I have lost much respect for "knowledge"
What struck me most about the book is right at the beginning.... "Something came out of nothing" That is how the universe was created and the best part of this is that I have read this theory somewhere in a more flowery language.. Can you guess where? If you can't here is a conversation that apparently took place between a guru and a shishya in an ashram more than 2000 years ago:

Student: How did this mighty banyan tree come about?
Teacher: Son, This mighty tree came from the seed
Student: How did the seed come about?
Teacher: Go fetch a seed and see what is inside it
Student: I see nothing inside the seed, teacher!
Teacher: That is correct my son, the mighty banyan tree came from "nothing"

This is from one of the Upanishadas and you will find the whole conversation translated into English in Romila Thapar's Penguin History of India....
Thank you Mr Bryson, your brilliant book has restored my faith in ancient Indian knowledge, in our myths [the large oversized mammals and other weird creatures that you describe from times past are all there in our mythology].
PS: Those interested in scary things, here are three instances from the book of how fragile we are:

1. The whole of 70 odd acres of Yellowstone National Park in the mouth of a volcano, if it bursts one day, and it is due to burst if you belive in probablity, more than half the population of the world will perish as collateral damage:)
2. When you go to sleep remember for the millons of bacteria living off your skin your head looks like a tasty doughnut.
3. Twice in the last 20 years two planetoids have passed the earth's orbit at a few lakh kilometres. This is apparently a miraculous escape, something close to a bullet passing through your shirt sleeves....