Getting on a real Ferris wheel is sometimes a better way to have my head spin. Sheher Dilli surpasses that wretched giant toy. But there is no getting off the city’s crazy ruckus and walking away from it. You get rocked, spun and lullabied. This would work fine if you saw confetti and glitter lights all around. Mostly it is a ‘ping’ in the ears and a vast field of mustard flowers blinding your eyes. You seek the hard ground. Silent footfalls. Numbness holds your hands before you can walk.

The Sai Baba temple at Lodhi Road crossing stops my auto rickshaw-driver and me. He must be religious; at least his vehicle. Blue-green gods are placed below the windshield, probably plastic stickers – a fat Ganesha with his little mouse-ride, a pretty Lakshmi dangling a lotus from her fingers, and other gods with many heads or multiple eyes. Wearing Amar Chitra Katha attire, and sporting gilt-edged ears and studded arms. Remnants of incense stick ash quiver beyond the steering handle.

The crowds on the road swell every minute. The temple is the great leveler in some ways – there’s no distinction between pedestrians and moving vehicles. My driver tries to work out the speed for this three-wheeled carriage to get me to my destination. We smell the sweat and the sandalwood paste. It is Thursday morning. A main thoroughfare in Delhi as summer bakes its back in a slowly heating clay oven.

The Ferris wheel sways up and down in a maverick fashion. Faces bob and bait me. Men in kurtas, humid tees and even unwashed shirt collars. Women a multitude of colourful heads – pink, red, ochre – covered with sari pallavs or transparent salwar-kameez veils. Kids walk between adult knees. Flower petals fall down crushed in fervent hands and the invisible vermillion powder in the hot air suffocates me. The auto sputters, barely moves.

“I need a smoke,” says my driver. “But someone might be offended.”

I contemplate walking down but remember what happened once. Devotees pushing; someone’s hand in my pocket quickly scrounging for material items; another hand even on my butt, pressing and persuasive. But all this should be Maya. Or magic. You can’t see who does it and how.

“In Bulandshahr we have temples.” My auto-driver stops at a volley of honks behind us.

I wonder if he means we don’t have enough temples in Delhi. Or if his town has bigger and better ones. Globalisation could work wonders of those kinds, unheard in the media in the big city. Perhaps a citizen journalist will report one day. Of bright temples in Bulandshahr.

We keep crawling through the burgeoning crowd. In the side mirror of our lopsided auto I see a spanking new-ish car smoothly parting part of the crowd here and there. Shapely and well manicured feminine feet come out, uncomfortable in touching the concrete sans their stylish footwear. But sacrifice must be made. Even if the path to the god inside the temple may be fraught with hard pebbles, spit and grime. Unaccustomed heads try to keep the customary veils on the head. Also their demeanor is hidden behind ample sunshades.

“In this temple, you can beat the crowd only if you arrive in those cars,” my auto-driver goes vocal again. “In Bulandshahr you can hear the temple bells. Serene. And no garbage.”

His voice is unshaken by the spin of the turmoil. Only now I notice he is shaven well and wears a half-sleeved shirt. He is around twenty-five, medium-built and because he turns behind in a silent growl at the honking car cascade, I see that his eyes are distant. Those ones perhaps never moved out of Bulandshahr. They still sit at the temple steps, listening to the prayer bell tinkle.

“Alone, madam? Is this guy troubling you?” A scrawny policeman has emerged from somewhere.

I’m told the guardian of law also aids petty criminals in a melee. He approaches our auto and peeps in, looking me up and down.

No, my driver isn’t troubling me. But my voice drowns in the high-pitched holler of a group of hijras. Twenty hands thrust towards me through the open side of the auto. Like shadow puppets they curl, fist, flop about and lurch. It’s my money they want. Only then I can proceed further. Only then I can birth hundred sons. Or, I can reclaim my existence on this summer-struck land.

The policeman meanwhile asks papers from my driver. I wonder what’s the hurry amid the divine madness that we are in. Thursday outside the Sai Temple premises is not usually a favorite with the authorities unless petty sharing on wrong parking etc. is the concern.

The hijras meanwhile swear I’d be born a Muslim in my next birth and one even threatens me with other consequences in this birth if I do not abide by their demands. I stare at those hostile faces, clutching my bag tightly under my arm.

“Hey, hey, scoot, you bastards!” Finally the policeman intervenes, waving my auto driver’s papers. “You parasites, suckers without balls. Scram or you’ll be behind bars.”

He leads the slowly rolling auto to a relatively clearer area, walking side by side.

“In this city, even the castrated won’t spare a woman!” He valiantly thumps his thigh. “Get down, you. Since when do you call yourself Yusuf Khan?”

My auto driver gets off.

“Ever since my parents called me so, sir!” Rubs his brown hands in apparent surprise.

And something just whips and splits the hot and humid air. I watch it all from being aloft on a giant wheel, circling the drama in front. Our policeman won’t tolerate the joke that this driver has cracked; or believe that his name is indeed Yusuf Khan, so what after a thespian it is.

“In trouble everyone becomes a film star, han?” The lawkeeper barks louder. “Pakistani!”

Yusuf Khan has to accompany him to the police station. I can hail another auto. Or just walk through the devotees. Perhaps pray too, because my life is safe. Despite alerts, no terrorist blew up a vehicle killing innocents thronging a temple complex. Terrorists with fancy tinsel town names.

While the Ferris wheel has me want to throw up against its steady, all-knowing spins. I point at the driver and manage to say one word: “Bulandshahr.”

“Madam, all of them are from there these days.” The cop stomps the hot tar with his boots.

“This work is supported by the City as Studio programme of Sarai-CSDS, Delhi”.