Maybe it is me who has changed over the years and the city, earlier so ravishing in its newness, now appears merely a showpiece. When Delhi transformed in the 1990s from a sleepy city into a bustling megalopolis, one had the luxury to imagine where this transformation might lead to. Looking at Delhi now, one would be hard-pressed to suppress a note of disappointment at how the city has grown so little apart from the cosmetic changes.
The India Habitat Centre, where my friend's wedding was held, and the India International Centre are still the only ports of call for the socially rising. A membership is de rigueur and the old boys' network ensures it is always in short supply. Name-dropping might have eased post-Arvind Kejriwal, but there is no denying that the Delhi of yore, marked by patronage and deal making, is the Delhi of today, only slightly greener.
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Look, on the other hand, at Mumbai. Messy, messy city. The infrastructure is in a shambles; to even imagine something akin to Lutyens' Delhi in Mumbai is so out of scope as to be eye-watering. Yet, Mumbai is a city on the move, its famed "spirit" acting as a bulwark against inertia. It is feasible, even in this time of inflation and anti-outsider rhetoric, for a poor man from Bihar to make a living in that city.
Delhi might also allow it, but one fears for the soul of such a man. When Balram Halwai escapes the darkness of his village to land in Gurgaon in The White Tiger, it is but a small step to his ultimate transformation into an evil mercenary who will stop at nothing to "arrive". Delhi, in that sense, is a city of arrivistes who are forever looking to espy the code that governs the city and makes a newcomer's life nightmarish.
Perhaps this is why it was rather sad to see the same buffet on offer, with the same drinks, under the same lighting, at my friend's wedding. The soft glow inside Magnolia in the basement of the India Habitat Centre emerged as though unmoved in time from that day years ago when it was the setting for a business school interview. The wedding was equal insofar as the bride and the groom shared the expenses. But the place itself was trying to live up to a past that, ironically, was no different from its present. Had it ever been glorious?
Mumbai, when I lived there, also had pockets of incestuous influence-peddling, but the city on the whole never allowed this to become preponderant. Perhaps the best illustration of this is the universal willingness of Mumbaikars, regardless of the price tag of their transports, to allow pedestrians right of way. Good old Delhi, on the other hand, stuck to its reputation of making one jump, run and scoot across the road.
There is also Bangalore, my latest home, whose childhood memories during a trip are made of leafy avenues and pleasing weather. The city has grown denser, and the information technology sector has consummately changed the landscape, but the feeling is not one of loss. Bangalore can still boast the charms of a small town without exciting envy in its migrants. The gates are never too high, the paint never too sticky.
It is a relief really to encounter the messiness of other cities against Delhi's silent, manicured stretches. As I drove back with friends through Chanakyapuri after the wedding, it was possible to imagine that one was driving through a well-lit, adequately signboarded ghost town. It was barely midnight. It reminded me of the opening scene of Highway, in which a young couple encounters a band of dacoits minutes away from their south Delhi bungalow. The terror, the threat of that omnipresent outsider, unable to break through the multiples layers of privilege, was palpable. Delhi looks beautiful, indeed, but it does not feel so.
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