You drive a small car in New Delhi, you immediately get disowned, period. The city is all about size…the average city dude’s entire life gets spent trying to out-size the next guy, in every single department.

He should have thrown politically correct parties or played cricket with the colony kids…but he refused to shed his excess Mumbai baggage during his recent one-year stint in New Delhi. Standing out like a sore thumb in the capital, Anil Thakraney was shunned, sometimes ignored and often taken for a pillar or a lamp post!

I suppose most people are dead tired of the endless, vacuous Delhi/Mumbai (Bombay) comparisons and all that needs to be said, has been said. Also, my one-year stint in Delhi only helped ratify an ancient theory, which suggests that a Mumbai man will always struggle in the nation’s capital and vice-versa. Yes, I had a rotten time, I’ve felt more at home in London, Karachi, Osaka and Khartoum, I kid you not. The alienation was so intense, I would carry my passport on me at all times.

A Mumbaikar in Dilli Shilli

At the outset, I would like to make a confession: I did not care to shed my excess Mumbai baggage, I simply refused to blend in. (One should refrain from using that glorious, oft-quoted proverb, ‘When in Rome, behave as…’; considering the current political situation in Delhi, the clichéd adage comes dangerously close to reality.)

Anyway, here are the key reasons I think I did not fit in; the reasons I failed to make a single lasting acquaintance.

My Santro

It was a huge bloomer. You drive a small car in New Delhi, you immediately get disowned, period. The city is all about size…the average city dude’s entire life gets spent trying to out-size the next guy, in every single department.

My political incompetence

And whatever few opportunities did come my way, as far as hobnobbing goes, I blew them all because of my abject lack of knowledge on our politicians and their lifestyles. I have no clue as to where L K Advaniji prefers to buy his blue chappals, or what brand of snuff Atal Vajpayeeji uses after a heavy meal.

Anil Thakraney is a senior Mumbai-based ad and media writer. In his columns, he writes about people and places in his inimitable style.