The noisy racket of Delhi’s people I will hear as one who listens to music. Jamun, shahtut, phirni, chat-pakodi, bedmi kachori, rabri khurchan. Ahh! Ghantewala’s pista-lauj. KRISHNA SOBTI, The Heart Has its Reasons MANY OF THE DELHIITES I have met are Punjabi, having come as children with their refugee parents from the part of Punjab that is now in Pakistan, or having been born in Delhi of such refugees. Punjabis form a majority in Delhi, and there seems a sense among them of entitlement to the city. Where once Persian or Urdu might have been heard on the streets, now it is Punjabi and Hindi, which is essentially the same as Urdu (the national language of Pakistan) but after Independence has become more Sanskritized. Attempts were made to purge Hindi of its English and Persian loan words, to render it more “national,” but of course that proved impossible, as it is impossible now to avoid Americanisms. My friends during their lighter moments together often break into Punjabi, which would be partially understandable to most north Indians, and I find it rather close to Kutchi, so it is not quite foreign.
