ABSTRACT
Mohana Ganesan stared at the spinning disk on her phone screen that said “reconnecting.” She had lost track of the number of disruptions that had occurred during this video call with Parvathy Ramanathan. It made a long conversation seem even longer. Parvathy, or Paru to people who knew her, lived in New Delhi, India’s capital. Located in the north of the country, the union territory of Delhi had a population of over 18 million. With its historical monuments bearing testament to India’s checkered past, Delhi presented the juxtaposition of calm and chaos, ancient and modern, poverty and affluence, and backwardness and progress. Many residents of Delhi came from various parts of the country and spoke different Indian languages as their mother tongue. These residents represented India’s cultural and linguistic multiplicity, while the temples, mosques, and churches that dotted the cityscape portrayed its religious diversity. The diversities and contradictions seen in Delhi were characteristic of India.
