I remember that coffee advertisement. It showed a happy looking woman starting her day, sipping a fuming cup of coffee, looking lazily down from her wide balcony. I wanted to have that cup of coffee—all by myself, free, independent. And now, two years down in Delhi, I am having that cup on a lazy Saturday evening. My balcony doesn’t look half as nice as it does in the ad, given the fact that it’s probably one of the narrowest one in the world, there are pigeon pairs who fight and play and shit around, and of course there are chubby monkey-families who visit the shrubs regularly. Nevertheless, I can still make myself enjoy a cup of coffee looking down at the throng walking the alleys of my dear old Katwariya Sarai.

Life has changed for me, or should I say, I have changed for the life I have here? I guess the latter is truer (although it’s not one of those things in which all are true and some are more true!). Five days in a week, I slog like…I don’t know…probably like a dog or something? But dogs slog because they want to; an appropriate simile will rather involve the species called “mules”. Laden with work and bearing the limitless stupidity of another species called ‘supervisors’—I drag myself from Mon to Fri…and then finally comes the holy eve. Thank God it’s Friday!!! The bell chimes and the lights go dim. We put on our holy garb and head straight for the place where it happens all. Well, almost. Our destination is known as RPM…a small place where people pay huge amounts to get a can of beer and see pretty females in negligees. That, in modern parlance, would be “happening it all”, right? At least, the entertainment channels think so.

Freaky Friday night and then a late Saturday morning. And then comes the not-so-happy part of staying alone in an unknown city. The bell chimes again and this time it reminds me of the heaps of dirty clothes seeking my kind attention, the sink full of pots and pans and tumblers, the cockroach infested room with cobwebs and dust, and my own self…with dark kohl marks under my eyes and fat pimple to take care of! All these tragic things of life and only my poor soul and trembling hands! I guess you don’t pay rupees thirty six for a bottle of Nescafe, but you pay all five days of a week and busy weekends to sip that coffee at your balcony. Lesson learnt—never plan to have coffee alone, you might end up cleaning loads of pans all by yourself.