Who is a "Delhiite" ?

 That one thing which always struck me when I started living in Delhi--more than its food, locales, and people--this term, "Delhiite"? Who is a Delhiite? Really, a very enigmatic question and I am still grappling with this question, after three years of my stay in this beautiful city, that is Delhi.

I remember the first year of my undergraduate study in Delhi. Everywhere I went, this one term captured my imagination like nothing else. It was a term you were supposed to know. Are you a Delhiite? I never came across this term in the IDiva videos I binged upon. I never came across this term in my most favourite TV serial, where the protagonists stayed in East Delhi and Central Secretariat, and fell in love at the Humayun's Tomb!! But as you step in Delhi, you ought to know who is a Delhiite!!

I thought of possible ways to answer this question. It may be someone who resides in Delhi. But for how long do you need to stay in Delhi to  be identified as a Delhiite? Some people were born and brought up here, so they are the very obvious candidates. But others might have come to this city at sometime in their life, and stayed since. There are others who have fallen head over heels in love with this city's culture, even without having lived here. Some of my friends, like responsible citizens, even got themselves registered as voters in Delhi and voted in the 2020 elections. If they care so much for Delhi, are they not good enough to be Delhiites? Are they contenders in this race too? Who decides? Who knows?

Let me make this picture now more complex (this is where my dilemma also creeps in). In the course of these three years, I got to read and know about how Delhi and its present population has been shaped by several series of migrations and resettlements. One of the major factors behind this has been the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947. Thus, older groups of people leave the "Old Delhi" of their imagination, and newer groups of people fill in the spaces to shape the "New Delhi" of their dreams. The pre-1947 population of Delhi, much of whom moved into parts of Himachal and far away Northwestern India, whereas the relatively recent urban complexes at Vasant Kunj in South Delhi may have large numbers of people come all the way from Sindh and Punjab. Given this complex pattern of population shifts, do we really know who lived in Delhi all through this? One of my very close friends was brought up in Delhi, but his paternal family comes all the way from Karnataka. However, the way he has internalized the culture of Delhi and his very upbringing in Delhi makes me think, "this boy is a perfect Delhiite". Again, many of my friends were born in Chandigarh (actually in the same hospital), but they have resided in Delhi through all these years. Clearly,  having born in Delhi does not matter then. My friends have even been kind and culturally sensitive enough to have coined words like "Del-Mal" or "Del-Bong" (sounds like names displayed airplane boarding passes, eh?)   For me, these are terms of identifying oneself more closely with the city that has a djinn which pulls everything towards itself. I haven't encountered such terms in my hometown, to be very honest!

But what about us? We who have lived in Delhi for less than five years and yet, can't live away from it for a moment. What about those who never lived here, but loved it thoroughly? Won't the "Dilwalon" of "Delhi" make us a part of this lovely category? Let's just say well, they may or may not. But how does that matter? My love for Delhi and its culture, its people, and its locales, won't go down one bit. I would call myself a Delhiite. After all, I have left a part of myself in Delhi and I take a part of it with me. 

Delhi has no language, no culture, no food, or no people of its own. Yet, it has incorporated every bit of everything. And that's the loveliest part of Delhi. I always imagine the city just like a nice human being absorbing and learning everything that comes in it's way and without a bit of an ego or shying away from learning new things.  Delhi teaches you that. So does every Delhiite. Some day, when I will buy my dream home in Delhi (overlooking the Jama Masjid) , that would be probably my official step towards being a Delhiite. I crave for that title! A Delhiite.

Right now, I am just a Dehlavi. Or rather trying to be one, learning and loving this beautiful city. You must have felt why this mindless blabbering! Some of it might have been completely unrelatable! Well, sorry my blog did not offer you much more than just some weird and crazy thoughts that I just scribbled here. Sorry I took up your five minutes of reading something useful! But thank you for stopping by, and engaging with my thoughts. This is my blog. A blog on the little things that made Delhi memorable to me. The city where I spent three years of my undergraduate student life.