Delhi 6 is one of the first city movies, I distinctly remember. Not to say that there weren’t many being made, at that time, or now, but as someone who has come to identify the modes of art and cinema only very recently, it was the first one I remember appreciating, not only as a movie, but, as a movie about Delhi, the city. There is a brilliant displacement that works throughout the length of the movie, the beloved is often displaced upon the physical space, particularly the urban. The obvious male protagonist Abhishek Bachchan goes through an interestingly post-diasporic conflict of belonging, in the urban sprawls of New York, or in the more parochial streets, of a developing middle-class ethos, of Delhi 6. This conflict is mirrored in his attraction and simultaneous courting of Sonam Kapoor, the girl who has come to adjust, in her own splendid ways, to a similar, but class-bound, duality. The scene where she changes from her suit and stuff into the more urban-Indian style, and emerges from the metro station bathroom, and up the escalator, a renewed woman, has to be one of the most poignant articulations of the developing urban and consumerist way of being. In troubles within the streets, the relationship of the two shakes, and as the streets come alive, so does the romance, and the fascination. Truly a most brilliant movie. The song Rehna Tu has got to be one of my favourite songs ever, with a nice parallelism between the more classical and traditional flute(?) with a smooth jazzy-bluesy melody, really comes to mirror the duality that runs through the movie, and the wonderful lyrics by Prasoon Joshi really brings the beloved and the city superimposition into focus. The translation that follows has been heavily influenced by the above mode of analysis and imagination, so kindly bear through it.

stay—
as you are
a little pain, 
a little ease
stay—
as you have been

a slight caress
of the summer wind
stay—
a passion unleashed

like silk, o beloved
and a little abrasive
on some days you run
come strike me on some
and linger, on others
like made of vapour
a smell

wouldn’t want to change 
not a thing, o beloved

without adornment
without adulteration
not too much
not too little

i love you, o beloved
as you are

in your rain, i shall be
drenched, in it shall i drown

i love you, o beloved
as you have been

in your fire, i shall be
consumed, turn into ashes

you inflict pain, purple bruises
Convalescence too passes, yet
as you soothe me in your arms

and even for these bruises
blossoms, in me a love
o beloved

river, o river
in the depth of my beloved
let me drown, o river

stay—
as you are
as you have been

stay—
a gentle caress
a tempestuous passion

walking, hand in hand
how shall we cross over
turned against one another

one gives their left
and the other the right

come, walk with me
hand in hand
traverse the streets
o beloved

stay—
as you are

a little pain
a little ease