In Zambia, we recognized deeply that we were in a golden period of life. There were countless moments when we looked at each other and the world around us, took a deep breath in, and said that there was no way it could get better than this. We will never know quite why we were able to find so many of those moments. Maybe it was our mental and spiritual youth, the raw excitement of a first big opening-up of life; or the reality that our jobs were easier then than they are now, with fewer responsibilities, each of which weighed on us less; or something about the way the sunlight cut through the clear Zambian air, and the way the red dirt roads always seemed to bring us to a happy ending. Whatever caused these feelings, we came to identify them as the magic of Zambia.
One day when we had been together in Delhi for a few months, Will asked me if I thought the city had magic. I couldn’t find an answer that captured my feelings. A few quick ones swam to mind, but I could see that they were thin, lacking honesty.
“Yes, of course, every place with people has magic, and the number of people and the weight of human history and dreams in Delhi must make this place more magical than almost any other.”
“No, magic is in the eye of the beholder. It’s not real. If we have found magic in the past it was because we were bursting with it ourselves, because we wanted to see it in the world, so we created it. Life is drudgery for most people, and someone working hard every day to keep their family alive in Delhi would not call this place magic.”
I offer you the story of a few days in Delhi; and leave it up to you to decide for yourself.
-----------Saturday-----------
Mallika and I had planned to spend the weekend before Holi in a series of towns on the Ganga south of Delhi that have incredible pre-Holi traditions. Whole towns gather in one building to smear colors and throw flowers over one another; the women from one village beat the men from another with sticks. But it was not to be. The spectre of Covid was rapidly approaching, a travelling bus of Italian tourists rumored to be spreading the virus between Jaipur and Agra. We decided to sit tight in Delhi, and see what kind of fun we could find.
Our first goal was Lajpat Nagar, which our friends had set up to be a place of mystical enchantment, searching for cheap handmade mattresses. I knew it would be hard for the real place to meet expectations, and at first it seemed like nothing more than a large Indian market, albeit with all the fascination that that implies. Then I started seeing things I have not seen before: a man selling long single peacock feathers, a venerable single Banyan left standing in the middle of the bustle. We had almost given up our mattress search when a traditional Afghan bakery caught our eye, a huge spherical concrete oven with sweet flatbreads stuck to its roof. We bought some wood from a neighboring shop, and the proprietor pointed us to the very mattress shop we were looking for, just around the corner. Huge piles of mattresses bound with bright plaid patterns spilled out the open front of the shop, and an impossibly serene woman bargained with us on the price. Just as we settled, kids from a nearby rooftop threw a pot of water on our heads.
The Afghan refugee community in India has found a home in Lajpat, and we basked in the Kabul vibes, the shops with their writing in Farsi and English, the stands selling unknown breads. The few Afghans I’ve encountered in my travels have filled me with a sense of awesome foreignness that is very silly but very real: the gold-sellers in the Dubai souk with their deep, calm, threatening voices; the bent, dangerous-feeling men, one in a neck brace, on the flight into Delhi. The Kabul feeling of the neighborhood was thrilling, and then as we turned a corner, Mallika nudged me to point out a man who blew everything else out of the water.
He was the biggest man we had ever seen in our lives. But this description is woefully inadequate: he was a man out of stories for children, a giant. By a wonderful stroke of luck I have sat courtside for a quarter of an NBA game and been within reach of men seven feet tall. Next to this man, those players would have felt just as small as I did. He took up half the road and swallowed all the energy of the scene around him, a force of nature that threw off all the unwritten rhythms that make up the patter of the street. His hands could have crushed me with ease; his massive nose and chin were chiselled from stone. He was Andre the Giant in traditional Afghan clothing and cap, a vision of the way William Dalrymple and so many authors write in awe about the Pashtuns they have seen on their travels: more mountain than man, with no element of softness in his features, looking like bullets and clubs would bounce off the bones in his face.
After the fact, I became so intrigued that I googled “large Afghan man in Delhi” and found photos of the very man we saw in Lajpat; there is no way that another person looks the same as him. We had seen Sher Khan, a Kabul businessman and avid cricket fan who has traveled to India several times, and who is so big that he has to sleep in police stations because Indian innkeepers will not take him in. We caught our breath and fought our way out of the growing crowd in midday Lajpat Nagar.
-----------Sunday-----------
Lodhi Gardens is a free public park in central Delhi which has healthy grass and spreading shade-trees and stunning, massive 500-year-old Mughal tombs. On a good day in one of the small windows of good weather that Delhi provides each year, it is the kind of paradise that fills one with broad, all-encompassing love for humanity. We took a picnic and a frisbee to the Gardens, looking to relax a little.
As we spread our blanket a conservatively dressed Afghan family sat down next to us, and together we took in the scene. A large Punjabi clan played a series of creative, physical shoe-based games, and a series of vendors cycled through with their tempting offerings: a huge clear basket of pani puri, a round plate with gnarled sweet potatoes and bright green limes, a gaggle of large bouncy balls. The most striking were the cotton candy men walking in front of the venerable monuments with their pink, fluffy goods. Three young boys played keepaway with a soccer ball, wearing brown robes, chewing gum and looking tough with their sharp buzzcuts. They might have been Hazaras, or Kyrgyz, or Uighyrs. Over time other members of the same flock moved in and out of the game. The clear boss of the group was the smallest one of all, with a tottering but confident strut, a jean jacket, and a tough glower. To our other side there was a very young girl who was determined to make her way down a small hill, but couldn’t do so without falling. Her father kept swooping in at the last second to pick her up. There were groups of brightly dressed adult women sitting and talking, a young man sketching the scene while his friend took endless selfies, and traditionally, splendidly dressed old couples taking walks.
The diversity and utter contentment of the park gave the distinct feeling of hard-earned and tightly held peace. The parents proudly watching their kids play, and the grandparents strolling with elegant grace, had the air of people who had worked hard and suffered to make it to this beautiful day at Lodhi.
At one point we heard music, and decided to follow it to its source. We found it in the tomb. A gray-haired man, finely dressed in a dark suit with a red flower in the breast pocket, was singing beautifully from a book he was holding. The acoustics of the ancient, high-ceilinged tomb made his song sound especially melancholy, meaningful. We read some papers he had lined up introducing himself, but they were incomprehensible, despite being in English. His aura of mystery held. At one point, he stepped into the last shaft of late-afternoon light still slanting into the tomb. His red flower lit up brilliantly and his glasses glinted as he raised his head in fervent emotion, his eyes shut tight. Mallika translated the single phrase he was singing over and over: “The path of love is very difficult…”
When we got back to our local market, I decided to ask around for Bhang, a traditional weed-based Holi refreshment. I knew that it would be available at some shops, but that as always it would be about asking at the right shop before asking too many times at the wrong one, and kicking up too much suspicion. Luck was with us at the second little paan stall I asked:
Me in my expert Hindi: “Bhang hai?”
He’s confused: “Paan?”
“No, Bhang.”
“Aaaah.” A conspiratorial glance. “Kitna?” (How much you want?)
“10.”
And just like that, we were the owners of 10 small green balls of unknown potency, ready for Holi use.
In the evening we took the customary trip- Metro to the end of the line, plus cycle-rickshaw- to Vikaspuri (“the place of wisdom”), the West Delhi neighborhood where Mallika’s grandparents live. And despite not quite knowing my place there, I felt beautiful hospitality; and I sat with Mallika and her mother and her grandmother at the same time, and traced the lines of their gestures and smiles through the generations; and I ate the military peanut snack her grandfather prepared, and looked at the photos on the walls, and ate the wonderful food with a double serving of Ras Malai, and wondered how I had gotten so lucky to be there.
-----------Monday-----------
The day of work before Holi is utterly silly. On my bike ride to the office, I saw groups of young guys walking around happily with glazed eyes and colored powder in their hair, ears, everywhere. In the middle of the alley just in front of our office, a family was building a traditional pyre, stacking wood, and dung, and straw, and many other items I could not identify in a specific order. Magic was in the air. We spent the day getting excited and by sunset hopped into an auto headed for Malviya Nagar, the brightest, most active market in overall too-wealthy, too-organized South Delhi. The ride was terrifying and awesome. Every vehicle in Delhi was on the streets, bringing people and Holi supplies across town to burn fires as is tradition the night before the festival day. The crush on the streets was no match for our driver, who took every small opening as a challenge to show that he did not fear death. We did, however, and I dredged up “Zindagi… important hai!” and he laughed, and slowed down a little. We finally made it to our first target, street-food favorite Shree Ram Chaat, and as we ate our snacks we realized that a large crowd was growing around a pyre in front of a temple across the street.
All of a sudden, orange flame bloomed and jumped above the heads of the crowd, which started circling the fire incredibly quickly, organically, doing what it knew and had done for generations. We shoved through the crush of motos on the road and jumped on a low wall overlooking the fire, which illuminated the temple and the swirling crowd. People threw branches into the fire as they passed a certain point, pulling their kids by the hand to keep them moving. Signs for fancy retail stores provided the backdrop, reminding us that we were still in Delhi, and very much connected to the sameness of global elite culture. But while that fire burned, it was what mattered.
We started buying up our key Holi supplies, gearing up for the war that we knew was coming the next day. We got bags of colored powder, water guns, water balloons, small colorful fireworks, and a tiny plastic bottle of red pellets that we were assured would turn into bright red ice when put into water. The sidewalk was jam-packed with surreal colors, toys, masks, lit up by high-wattage bulbs newly strung up to handle the influx of Holi business to the market. We bought Kevar, a Holi-speific dessert like a thin Jaleebi, from a restaurant that had opened a whole new five-staff dessert stand on the sidewalk just to cook this delicacy.
We finished off our shopping spree at a liquor store, which was characteristically packed with customers jostling, loudly calling out their orders, holding out cash, and stopping the single woman making a brave attempt to buy from getting anywhere close to doing so. The signs behind the counter provided all the explanation needed: “Tomorrow Dry Day.”
-----------Tuesday-----------
Holi day began with a gentle introduction to urban melee tactics. Mallika and I went up to our roof to rub color on each others’ faces, drinking in the beautiful weather and the great sense of joy that the city exuded on the day- even if Covid was already shutting down some events, including the party that we had originally planned to attend in central Delhi. We watched from our balcony as the kids living in the first-floor apartment filled huge quantities of balloons, ready to launch their attacks in the neighborhood park. They were still filling them when another crew came down the street and lobbed balloons over the wall into the courtyard, going on the offensive without even seeing our building-mates. A battle ensued, and we made our presence known by raining our own balloons down onto the group, knowing that this would get us destroyed once we hit the street. We loaded up our guns, packed up our bags with valuables in deep waterproof pockets, and walked down the street ready to shoot. Neighborhood kids eyed us, calculating what danger we posed, balloons at the ready; a teenager threw his, but too slowly, and I blasted him full in the face, chortling madly. We got out mostly unscathed, but only because the groups on the roofs and high balconies relentlessly pelting passersby mostly missed us.
We met our friends and made the trek to Noida, a Delhi suburb across state lines in Uttar Pradesh, not knowing that this would be our last journey out of Delhi for a long time. We hung out at our friend’s family home, spraying water, playing with colors, drinking endless beers, watching each new carload of guests get destroyed as a welcome. Highly successful people, executives, people in solid middle age with responsibilities, letting absolutely loose. One key to this looseness was probably the huge stash of Bhang-laced ice cream that all guests were consuming with no hesitation. At some point, the host requested me to get my little balls of Bhang and provide them to some aunties and uncles who were not feeling it yet.
The spirit of goofiness culminated in our invasion of a neighborhood park, where we played with reckless abandon. Will and Jayson got into a scuffle, which Jayson escalated quickly with a deep guillotine choke; feeling the blood start flowing, I entered a drawn-out grapple with Jayson, both of us pushing hard, finally getting a win by triangle choke. Then there was frisball, and American football, and back injuries, and a ripped T-shirt, and for a few hours we were kids again.
----------------------
I ended up telling Will that I didn’t know if Delhi has magic. That it was too early to tell. And I never will be able to answer that question for sure. But in the days before Holi, which we would later learn were the last few days before the great lockdown, the magical moments flowed fast and clear. We brought ourselves into their course, and we snatched at them as they passed us, and held on long enough to feel their power. We can’t forget this; if the magic is real, it does not show itself to those who are not looking for it. It can’t be snatched by those who stay in the shallow water. And so we wait for the lockdown to lift, and we save our money and hold tight to our dreams. It’s coming up to summer, and the high mountain passes will open soon.