Since I am back in Delhi and armed with a richer understanding of other cultures and places now more than ever before, I stand in a decent position to offer insightful comments on our very own Dilli da Banda. Born a South Indian and raised in the capital, my control group is the unenviable 'Madrasi by birth & Punjabi by nature'(MBPN) category and being in such a non-elitist group renders me the by now much practiced ability to glean non-MBPN segment from the MBPN one.( Btw people from states Tamil nadu, Kerala, AP, Karnataka and probably southern parts of Maharashtra are all clubbed into the humble noun/adjective- 'Madrasi'; as the age old, unrevised definition of it goes)
The comparison however necessitates a strong and supporting context to make us understand the propensity of the Avg Dilliwala to showcase his much maligned exhibitionist behaviour to the amused audience he is serenading.Take my last travel in the Delhi metro as a case. Traveling along with so many of us that day and without the slightest hint of things to follow, I was busy devouring the ET. The train already had had 4 halts save the designated stoppage points.Cut to the next pause and one of the passengers took out his Nokia 3315 with a BSNL sim( I intend to define the consumer segment that he belongs to, should it help the loss making operators target him profitably via better positioning- as we will know later..)and called up somebody, yelling and shrieking at him.
Bewildered, we all were curious for what had befallen the once-sane guy.( Precisely the reason why shows like Big Boss do so well--any human is basically voyeuristic by nature; not sure where exactly does this trait stand on Maslow's hierarchy though). Looking at the clutch of stations yet to arrive on the metro route map,he shouted at the person on the other line deploring him and the Central government for the state of the Metro and requisitioning him to fix the problem NOW.By these 1.5 mins, people were in awe of the man who had at least the valour to call up somebody important in the Metro scheme of things and vent out the mass displeasure. Silent appreciation for the pluck just displayed filled up the box we were in.
Alas !! In the next nano second, while he was still busy yelling in assorted intonations, his phone rang to the tune of "Radhey radhey...". You are right..The man had fooled us !!
I truly believe this ingenious behaviour has its roots in dilli !!
As if this mooring ranked tops among the many that have involved one homosapien fooling the other, this person was beginning to experience a whiff of cold- shouldering plus the Gaali effect by the duped travelers en masse.One began to sense the air inside wafting with expletives directed at X for having fooled the mass- with fellas opinionating on how they knew always that he had been fooling us all along and that how one of their highly placed relatives could have directed the officials to build a metro right near his car parking -but in national interest and on account of propriety stopped just short. The Metro it seems is just 20 metres further from the tall-on-the influential-scale's house.
The plot for this blog had already been set in those 20 mins of action and never did I alight at my designated station with more glee !!
