All posts filed under: Making of The Capital

Making of a Capital : A Short Travel Poem and a Photo Essay

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And now we move to the rhythm of this restlessnessOn these streets many people dead they drive with recklessness 8% growth has some people flex with lexusesIn South ex shop for Rolexes and diamond necklaces Land developers come down hard build power nexusesThey build more malls and shopping complexcesses State militia vacate villages – next exodusSo you can cash checks of sensex indexes. Many narrators refer to Delhi as be-dil(heartless). They say the city is cruel, treacherous, ungrateful, selfish and a whore. Prior to the Muslim rule, Delhi’s most popular name was Yoginipur, City of Yoginis. Jain texts and Prakrita literature mentioned the city as Yoginipur. Yoginis are lesser goddesses; some texts say they numbered 12 while others put the figure at 64. Yogmaya, the presiding deity of Yoginopur, reigned over all the Yoginis. : ँ : Excerpts and Images from an Ongoing Project on Delhi Thank you. If today is the first time you have arrived on The Road to Nara, you are heartily welcome ~ Namaste : ँ : I will take this opportunity to …

Home and the World : Walking around New Delhi and Old in January ’22

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Even though every day, slowly months and years seem to pass as fast as they arrive; January is special because first so much celebration already happens even before it arrives that half of it leaves while many still living hungover or in the previous year. Yet for me it was bringing some change that i could experientially notice, and drastic at that. Father had a near death experience so much that one night sleeping outside Hospital, in the boot of a car made me succumb to the emotions of not having a father anymore. Those five hospital days were special in a strange and new kind of way. Father eventually came back strongly, and is on his way to retain good health. But still something changed in me. Probably the essence of time. How so much is often so little. Hence January had to be celebrated, in the only few way i can. Working, walking, writing better. Ever since the seed of working on Delhi’s past and present has yielded, i had been moving around …

Yogmaya : The Sacred Power that witnessed New Delhi – १

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It was sudden. A day of change. Something shifted. Paradigm. Light. Its been months that I had known where to look yet It took time to find. Because it had already found me. It was in my hands and sooner I became it. In my search for the permanent, in this land which once was ruled by the snakes. Forest. In the name itself, energy resides. I reached Yogmaya. After months, without telling even my own self. The moment that child arrived I packed my bag, took my documents, opened the door and started walking towards her. As if she called on the eve of her birth night. It was five thousand and sixty eight hundred years ago. 5068.  From today starts Nine days of Worshipping the mother. How will you do it?I will take the help of Fire.    When she calls, the time subsides. Last evening, I was brimming with energy. I passed through the mausoleum and Mehrauli felt like a foreign country. It had been long I thought i was looking, rather …

Truth, Evil and the Sun

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When we reached Gopeshwar that night, Gana seemed speechless. But Neel looked at him with satisfaction giving an expression like then he has seen. We sat around fire, while waiting for the food to arrive. Open your ears said Neel and he began speaking like reciting an over practised hymn. The men in the east, he said, are trees; those in the south are flocks of animals; those in the west are wild plants. And those in the north like ourselves, who cried out while they ate other men, were the waters. When the collective sound started filling the air, he started explaining about eating. The act of eating is a violence that causes what is living, in its many forms, to disappear. Whether grass, plants, trees, animals or human beings, the process is the same. There is always a fire that devours and a substance that is devoured. This violence bringing misery and torment will one day be carried out by those who inflict it. Pouring milk into the fire- every morning, every evening- …