exhaling after 3 days in the homeland

I'm looking over the parapet of a modern fortress, protected by a moat of wild shrubs, reedy trees, squealy pigs, inhabited, uninhabited ruins and some murderer / rapists/ [though my host said, in manner of famous last words - nothing has Evvver happened here. he also said rather cheesily when i started a reverie about this being the delhi of storybooks - here you see the confluence of city, village and forest - which brought a giggly end to that discussion.]

There's some sort of fire in Mehrauli forest below. teh smoke is blown terrace-wards. it billows, but softly, into the cable chocked crevices between the tall apartment blocks, here a stack of overlooked balconies, there a shameless(ly empty) swimming pool. The tall blocks make the edge between the forest and the packed crazy-urban settlement represent what is on paper, a lal dora.

who owns this land?

- i ask. not the government surely. indeed it's easy to forget that we have one. more so, because said government has marked this, among other places as being outside normal plannign regulations - lal dora, a red line on a regional plan. delhi makes the most of this selective lapse of order. weird, unique, creative lifestyles and support systems are carved put of the messy urban topography of urban villages. my host and his neighbours share this terrace, share a nursery, share storage space, with a specific type of bhaichara only. They never speak, never acknowledge each other (which i suppose is delhi-like). They share and protect (which is un urbanlike) And they judge, but only from a distance (which is un villagelike).

The Qutub through bougaivillea looks ancient and alive. Not like a memento of days gone by, but a minaret in use, maybe with satellite dishes on top, who knows. and there are nasturtiums on my parapet, in flower boxes.

England seems cold and far and yet i am very peaceful. homecoming types...

Not to say i've ever known such a home in delhi. mine has been the rajdhani of Lutyens' high ceilings and neat lawns. I have to find that part of me quite soon. Delhi's huge y'know, takes time to get around.

But this terrace on the brink of history seems a manifestation of something you 'feel' about this city - raw, cooking, enterprising, noisy, aloof, green, dirty, brown, rich,poor.