This post was long overdue, but on public demand (namely Viral 
I had to go ahead and write this.
My company had planned a week’s training for us in
Delhi..and as always, I was excited at the prospect of seeing a new place, especially when the new place happens to be the capital of your country..(it awakens the patriot within you)
Having lived in Mumbai for two years now, I was totally in awe when I reached
Delhi..the place was huge!! We locals of Mumbai get easily impressed on the following two factors:
- Space
- Greenery
And
Delhi seemed to have that in abundance. On our way to C.R.Park (where we were scheduled to stay), I couldn’t help but gape at my surroundings. It was almost as if I were in some foreign land. The streets were big enough to accommodate four lanes, which can only be seen in Mumbai’s National Highways, ornate with trees…simply beautiful. I was already in love with the place and had sworn to myself that I would settle down in this place and my bones would be buried here.
I was in for a big shock.
Seeing the whole of
Delhi in a weeks time is next to impossible especially when you have to manage work and leisure. Viral (who was also accompanying me) and myself chalked out plans to visit the Qutub Minar, India Gate ( two eminent historical monuments of
India) and visit the metros ( a drastic contrast to our Mumbai local railways).
We ventured out on our own, ofcoarse we could do this on our own, our nation has buses, rickshaws just like Mumbai, we were in the capital for crying out loud, what’s to be afraid of? At first I thought, us not getting richshaws (a sickly green and yellow) easily was just our bad luck..but I soon realized that finding rickshaws, let alone empty ones was a task in it self. Then another thing surprised me, there was no meter system that was followed. This allowed the drivers to charge us anything under the sun, and we were helpless as we were not aware of the prevailing rates.
I tried forgetting all of that and shifted my focus to our sight seeing. The Qutub Minar and the India Gate are breathtaking. Again I could feel the hidden patriot stir within me. The sight of the iron Ashoka Pillar in the Qutub that’s almost 2000 years old and the podium where the President gives the speech on republic day thrilled me! Dusk was approaching and Viral decided that we should leave but I decided to linger a bit..I just couldn’t leave the site.
It soon got dark and I reluctantly relented to Viral’s insistence that we leave. And would you know it, we couldn’t find one , and when we did, some simply refused to take us to our destination ( for no apparent reason), and then there were some who started quoting us double the fare . What cost us around 45 Rupees would now cost us around 85-90 Rupees! I was furious..Just because we were tourists doesn’t mean that we could be looted. I refused to accept their rates and decided to continue searching until we got a rick that charged us the right fare, despite Viral’s disagreement. Viral was concerned about my safety that I simply brushed off . I then recalled a delhi local from my head office jokingly telling me “ After eight, a girl roaming on the streets of
Delhi is either raped, or murdered, or both. If she does manage to survive all three, she is considered to be of ‘loose’ character”
Suddenly Viral’s concern seemed to make sense. Again I relented and we got into a richshaw that charged us 80 Rupees.
Delhi was starting to loose its charm.
The next day Viral and myself were really hungry and were tired of eating at the guest house, and didn’t want to leave the premises on account of it being Holi (a festival of colours..celebrated by throwing colours at each other) We called up the helpline to inquire of Mc Donalds. To our astonishment, the call attendants weren’t even aware of the place we were living in. Inspite of repeated explanations about us being new to
Delhi, it some how didn’t get through to them. After three hours of trying, atleast a hundred phone calls, we finally managed to get the number of a nearby ‘Pizza Hut’. So we had our lunch at 3pm.
I was convinced by now, that Delhi is just a developed ‘village’!
(Sigh)
I would end it there, overlooking other inconveniences that we faced as just nitty gritties of life. But, on reaching back to Mumbai, I was glad.
Mumbai may be cramped up, polluted, chaotic…but it’s home! And I was where I belonged.
