Lately, I have been so thoroughly occupied in my online Psychological endeavor. My website is an attempt to provide people with content about everyday psychology in a language that they find interesting and easy to understand. The website is complete with forum where they can post their problems, talk about them, while others can make comments and suggestions, which may help distressed people look at their problems with new fresh perspective. The forum will be a platform for people to openly speak out issues plaguing them and discuss their psychological and emotional problems. Of course, the forum will be moderated by experts from the field of Psychology, with credentials and academic background and practical experience in this field (including me).

So come and talk freely on the website. Feel the healing touch of psychology!

Here I beg to differ with the Bard when he says what’s in a name. I, for one believe that there a lot in a name, after all there is a lot of difference between a rose and a place or for that matter a person. If I was not Nidhi, may be I would have a different person, who would have then tried to give definition to the other name given to me. We carry burdens of our names and whole our lives are lived striving  to justify the names bestowed upon us by way of our actions and personage. Each name makes us conjure up an imagination of the person concerned, and how correct we are in that fabrication is another matter!

But here I don’t mean to dwell upon my name, rather upon the name of our national capital – New Delhi. Recently India commemorated 150 years of the beginning of the great uprising of 1857, which, after a consistent struggle of around 90 years, ultimately culminated into India’s independence from the colonial yoke, and saw the rise of the biggest democracy in the world, breaking out of the shackled trappings of regalia and splintered small kingdoms into a nation with great promise. Lately there is a stream of thought going into historian circles, which contemplates that the name of national capital be reverted to its original name, Dehli. It would be a minor alteration but its historical significance abundant. Dehli was the ancient name of many cities that inhibited the ever-expanding space, which for centuries comprised the capital of various kingdoms and empires, but it also had a beautiful meaning that got lost in the process of anglicization into Delhi and then New Delhi.

The Indian history is replete with tales of invasions and migrations into the northern plains mostly from the passes in the north-western mountain ranges. Thus, Dehli was the threshold “dehleej” to the riches of the plains and virtually the only entry point into the subcontinent, since the other three sides being provided with natural defence in the form of the Himalayan ranges, seas and oceans. In fact, even from the northwest an invader had to cross many rivers, and Dehli was the last post of defence before he could traverse the plains along the rivers far into Bengal without any further hindrance. In fact, all the cities of Dehli were located within the system of natural defence provided on three sides by the enclosed ridge and on the fourth by the Yamuna river.

For the nation as well as each resident, Dehli is a powerful metaphor for the so many thresholds in their lives that this poetic reason may be sufficient unto itself to go back to the original name since the colonial improvisation Delhi or New Delhi does not convey any meaning.

Another name that lingers on is “Dilli” as legends and folklore teem with tales that the city was shaky or “dhilli”. It is believed that the Sheshnag, the divine serpent supported the earth but the constant shivering and shaking of its head caused severe earthquakes. Thus, in order to stabilize the earth, or at least the Dehli city, the iron pillar (in Qutab complex in Mehrauli) was dug into Sheshnag’s head, after which there have been no mishaps.

Well so much so for myths and folklores! How they spice up our imagination, thoughts and lives!!

All said, historian records support that after the revolt of 1857, the British were motivated to erase the grand city itself and would have carried out the decimation plan to effect but for the strong opposition from within the British ranks itself. Fortunately, the city survived and has risen immensely, teeming with vital life and richness, but now it is time when we return to the original name Dehli, not with an objective to erase the colonial past, which has richly added to the grandeur of the city, but with the objective to salute the 150^th anniversary of the mutiny that laid the path which we tread upon now. Moreover, the change can be effected with such great ease!

Dehli!! There is after all so much in a name - the meaning, history, folklore, myth, music, memories of bygone times, dreams, imaginations, fragrance and aspirations for future!!

A book has the sacred power to totally absorb the reader in its pages as I also find myself helplessly fallling victim to the verbose charms, and feeling delirious and absolutely fascinated with Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”. I am dreaming of Anna, fantasizing about her daring romance with Vronsky, sharing the forbidden pleasures and fleeting moments with them and I can also feel the angst of a spurned although listless husband. With Levin I have experienced the morbid fear of death that hangs over us like a sword, and which is actually the only truth of our ephemeral lives. With him I also tasted the pain of a denied lover, and shared his joy when he ultimately wins his beloved and leads her to the altar. Levin and I have also endured many seasons in the meadows occupied in activities such as haying, stacking, mowing, and seeding in the countryside over shared lunches and simple talks with the fellow farmers.

These days my mind is in Russia, traveling between Moscow and Petersburg of the czarist times, dining and dancing with the gentlemen of yore, while sharing gossips with the ladies in flowing gowns and coquettish manners. I can almost see them batting eyelashes with full eyes at the men and their trains sweeping past the horse-drawn carriages. While it is summer at its scorching best in this real world, in Petersburg, my world is all frozen with white sparking sheets of snow and icy winds brushing my face.

I am hurtling towards the end of the book and I am already looking towards the end of this journey with trepidation and many times I find myself hung on words as they are just so beautiful that I lament why they did not come out to me when I have been nurturing them somewhere in my heart ever since the beginning of time!

Although the end of the book is a bit afar but falling prey to my usual habit, I have visited its end. I cannot handle suspense so after knowing a bit of story I flick to the end and then read the book with much leisure and pleasure. *Strange are our ways, indeed*