Notes from the first walk

5 min readDec 13, 2023

Mallika Taneja ( written in 2016)

There will be photos that explain a lot.

We started in front of the St. Mary’s orthodox Cathedral. Just because it is close to where I live. And close to the park we were going to visit first.

The park close to my house has been a comrade since my very early running days. This is where I did my first run ever… ran 2km without feeling destroyed. This is the park that I go to now to stretch a little and use the outdoor gym ( yes.) and soak in the sun. It’s also the only park I know around my area that is open to walk into at night. Other big parks like deer park and rose garden are locked down.

So this is where we first went and just as we waked into the park we encountered the gym. It was like children has found swings. We played, analysing the worth of each swing in great detail.

Then, we moved.

We strolled into the park then out of it… then we strolled all over SDA and made our first chai and parantha stop. There was Ella, Adriana, Faith, Krish, Iqbal and me.

Then towards Aurobindo and then, we did the unthinkable. We walked right into hauz khas village on a saturday night. That it was the eve of valentines day did not strike any of us. But there we were, navigating our way through miles of cars, right into the middle of what could only be described as a war zone. Constant honking, a mixture of loud musics, too many lights, way too many balloons, too may restaurants, too many people, too much eagerness to have a good time in HKV. It was all very…destructive. The stares, the ‘cool’-ness, the opulence, the waiters flinging themselves at you to come into their restaurant or eat their roll or eat their ice cream or cake or drink their alcohol or whatever… I looked up at the faint lights of TLR and thought of a world that has died. And felt nervous about this new world that everyone loved so much.

Dipannita and Persis joined us here. We walked. Away from the histle and bustle of over excited valentiners. Into the galis of hkv and we stumbled upon a home that looked more like a bar but was a home. We walked in just as Maham, a pakistani artists was walking up. “come, it’s really very friendly”. And it was. We got stuck there a little… tempted by alcohol and other things.. I had to play leader. We moved on, leaving Krish behind to bring Maham ( and also because he just REALLY wanted to have a drink… which he later claims he didnt.). We walked, we had a roll, we walked again, we picked up more people at Aurobindo market, Faith looked and looked and looked for a loo to go to, we went to my home, and people peed.

Then we moved to JNU. Walking slowly in the group remained a challenge. It was difficult for people to walk slowly.. difficult for me to set the pace.

The flower shops were open at 2 am… afterall, it was valentines day. One rose costed 30 rupees, In the morning, it would cost 50. What all love can make you do! Actually, it’s archies. Not love.

We entered JNU through the west gate. Quiet JNU.Where just a few hours before, many had gathered in protest of a students’ arrest. We walked. All over JNU. We told stories. We ate revari, bananas, sipped water. We walked under the tungsten lights. We saw a porcupine. We walked. We stopped. We sat and ate a granola bar. Then, we walked again. We all noticed the calm that came over us as we walked through JNU. How safe we felt here. How fearlessly we could walk. And how we could talk about anything.. because you know, these days you don’t know who is listening, editing and taking offense. Not too long ago, we were leaving from Aurobindo market and saturday night-ers were leaving hkv. It was around 1 am. They were loud men who cat called women, tried to pick some of us up, played loud music to attract our attention, there were drunken brawls… there was what seemed like complete anarchy. In the name of a good time, party, fun. I always feel threatened by what leaves hkv on a saturday night. I know I can be accused of many things for saying this — classist, elitist whatever else — ist you want to call me — but the fact remains, the city shows its ugliest side as it exists hkv on saturday nights. This is what was truly threatening.

We exited the JNU main gate at around 4am. Everyone was tired. We called it a night. We all saw the barricades, the media van, the police busses.