Actor Ridhi Dogra is a true-blue Delhiite and her memories are here to prove that. As she breezes through Delhi’s Deer Park, on an evening in the the Capital’s summer, she reminisces growing up in the area in and around Hauz Khas. What she can’t resist mentioning is how much she misses picnicking in the parks here, ever since she shifted to Mumbai in 2005.
“One thing I miss about Delhi is the parks and the idea that you can go to a park, sit on a bench, and actually spend time there. I know that a couple of my Delhi friends still do that here. It’s just so beautiful,” says the 40-year-old. But looking at the silver lining of the Maximum City, she adds, “Of course Bombay (Mumbai) has the beaches, where we can go and do our picnics, but it’s something else to be in Nature and greenery, which is something I have grown up around me.”
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Garmi ki chuttiyan in Dilli
Reminiscing summers holidays and how it meant planning a vacation to the hills, Ridhi says with a twinkle in her eyes, “We used to go up to the hills. I think the beauty of being in Delhi is how close you are to the mountains. So whether it’s a drive to Chandigarh and then to Kasol or Kasauli, or Manali every year we used to go. I have cousins in Bombay who actually used to come down to Delhi during summers and we would plan these getaways!”
Green Delhi
For the actor, growing up in the Capital, in a home situated near a dense forest cover, meant having the freedom to explore Nature’s bounty to the fullest. “There used to be a park right outside and the beauty of that area where my childhood home is, is that even the Deer Park is right there. So our house was in the colony, and we shared a huge wall with a forest. I remember the elders at that time saying that this place is two to three degrees cooler than the rest of the city because of the forest land, the trees and the wildlife that’s behind us,” she recalls.
The quintessential mango love!
Any mention of Delhi and its summers is incomplete without talking about relishing mangoes! “I’m now in Bombay (Mumbai), so whenever I taste the mangoes that think about dilli ke mangoes, and it completely takes me back to my childhood. I feel like I’ve just come back from school and enjoying mangoes,” says the actor, filled with nostalgia.
Journaling & Nature bathing
The actor candidly shares how she prefers to be amid Nature sometimes when the urge to write hits her. “I feel most calm and balanced self in Nature. This is actually the essence of nature and we are part of nature. We are so disconnected with nature that it has started looking like its nature versus us but at the end of it we are the elements of it,” she says, adding: “Since we are talking about summers in Delhi, I would like to definitely drive home that point that we all must spend more time in Nature more than we think we do.”
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