Meri Dilli, Meri Jaan

Home is where the heart is, or its where the hearth is; take it how you will. It is when I come back on vacations that I realise how completely I belong to my city. A certain fat man I know keeps insisting that Delhi is full of obnoxious snobs and is an awful place to live. Despite a great temptation to stick my tongue out and say, "pffffbbt, thats what you think" I generally desist from retorting, since I think its of no great consequence. But after having spent the better part of the day roaming around the rather obscure parts of Delhi, partaking(?) of all the forms of public transport you can think of, my love is just about bubbling over.

The Bus, and other Assorted Transport

Oodles has been written about the Metro, and the DTC, and whatnot. But to someone who has travelled in Delhi in the pre-Metro, BlueLine phase as well as the Post-Metro, CNG Bus phase, no amount of writing can suffice to explain the difference. I took the 620 from Sangam cinema today to go to Rail Bhavan. It was one of the new funky buses, the double buses. It was as comfy a ride as I've ever had...anything that can lull me to sleep after a nine hour night the night before, is worthy of praise. I got off, walked a measly 1.5 minutes to take the Metro to Vidhan Sabha(at which point, I got thoroughly disturbed cos the first thing that sprang to mind was Vidhan Soudha). I took the rickshaw from there to wheer I had some work, then took pretty much the same route back. Not once was there an unnecessary delay, the rides were always smooth, and every now and then people stopped to help me out.(reaching Jhugli Hall requires help, so stop mocking). Despite constant diatribes about how Delhiites are rude and boorish, all I could make out was that the men who stopped to help me out might have been talking in a funny Haryanvi accent that I had trouble understanding, but of their own accord they stopped and directed me via the shortest route. And, they all spoke Hindi!

Moments of truth

At lunchtime, I somehow ended up at the Lhasa-Buddhist monastery market. Its this obscure place near ISBT, which sells a lot of shoes, a lot of cheap clothes, and some decent food. In the first floor of a "Shakura Restraunt", with seedy looking men looking in my direction, and staring down in consternation at the uber-oily food served to you. Thats the only way to have a lunch out in Delhi. With "Bela Mehka re Mehka Aadhi Raat Ko" playing in the background, I could not help but feel indescribably in love, except I don't know what with...though I do consider that there's no better place to fall in love than the whole North Campus area, it was something more than that. An all encompassing and almost unbearable lightness of being(yes yes, with all due references). Do go that side sometime when you have time on your hands, it'll make you at peace with the world.

Hehe. I realise how random this post must read to anyone who doesn't know me, so I guess I'll stop here. Just some random thoughts. I finally did see Rithala, if only for the heck of it. I had Maha Nimbu Lemon at PPC today...how one misses the good ol' days(nostalgic sigh). I can cook enough to garner a good match now. I hate ambitious work plans, especially when I make them. It is very difficult to release the clutch at the right speed. Nothing quite beats a mango sandwich at home. And lastly, panna is quite heavenly.

Cheerios.