Don’t panic. I am not going to put in what you might want to call – an detailed account of my journey. All I want to record here are my little experiences, which eventually prove that Delhi is not entirely unlike the good old India.
It was around 3 years back that I had the privilege of visiting Delhi along with my class mates – a better word would be friends). We had a letter from some minister then, to get cheap cum deluxe accommodation at the Western Court, a huge whitish building with a pre-independence type architecture. The good things – nice food (I have no idea why my friends hated it) and a geyser that spewed out steaming-hot water 24-hrs a day. All 18 of us crammed into 2 rooms and it was fun.
This time over, the situation was glaringly different. This time, I put up at the Hans Plaza, a 15-minute walk from the Western Court. The deluxe room thankfully had a centralized air-conditioning. I will try to add a webcam-snapshot of a photo of the room I had taken there.
Lunch was unsavory and loathsome. Another difference I see is the climate. The first visit was in early February and it was very cold and dry then. Now, in late July, it was surprisingly hot and humid. I guess now you know why I used the word “thankfully” when I mentioned about the air-conditioning. The good thing is that the steaming-hot water is still there.
My relatives later joined me and the things started to run fine since then. But there is one important episode I wanted to talk about here. I arranged for a tourist bus to collect us from our hotel for a trip to Taj Mahal and its adjoining places of Interest, and this proved to be a real “experience” in every sense.
The attitude of the people is not as impeccable as the roads of Delhi:
First thing I noticed as soon as I stepped out of the Domestic Terminal of Delhi airport was that the roads were good and wide and people had good traffic sense. People were driving about in an orderly fashion and the front-seaters had their seat-belts on. I got myself into believing that the people of Delhi had “grown up”. This misconception did not last long. The guy who was pleased to book tickets for my for the Agra tour promised to pick us up at 7 AM sharp and to deposit us back at our hotel by 10 PM sharp. He picked us up at 7:30 AM sharp and dropped us back at 2:15 AM sharp the next day!
The buzzword of Hyderabadis is “Chalta Hai” and that of Delhi is “To Kya Hua?”
Certain south-Indian individuals were visibly unhappy about certain co-passengers not showing any time-sense. These so-called co-passengers saw something of interest during their walk and they came back to their bus 10 minutes after scheduled departure time. The enraged south-indiam, interestingly, a tamilian who was didn’t get to learn much Hindi started shaking with rage as soon as he saw these nonchalant Dilliwala get into the bus.
“Are bhai… kya problem hai… kitna time leta hai”
“Sirji.. Shant ho jao… bhait jao”
“What bhait jao… kya…. See how many passengers are waiting..”
“To?”
“To kya… time pe aana maalum nai kya”
“Thodi si deri ho gayi. Bas… ab teek hai na”
“What ab teek hai na… night ko late ho jayega… small children hai… you people don’t understand.. late kyoo hua?”
“Kuch zaroori kaam tha bhayya… thodi si late ho gayi… to kya hua?”
“To kya hua… some time sense hona hai…”
“Sirji… mera dimag mat khao… bhait jayiye.. please”
“…”
“Bas sirju…. “
Visiting time is directly proportional to commission
There are three places to see in Agra… the fort, the Taj Mahal and a handicrafts shop displaying so-called genuine marble work Visiting time for Agra fort – 40 min. Visiting time for Taj Mahal – One-and-a-half hours. Visiting time to this shop – 15 minutes, extended to two hours!
All Bengalis are the same
My co-passinjaar in this bus baaz a Bengali. He barks as a secret agent for the Home ministry. He was awarded as one of north-India’s greatest Astrologers. A little catalyst provided in the form of a question triggered an exo-sonic reaction which produced a tedious series of words extending for hours regarding things that interest me and things that don’t. He opened this Kashmiri carpet of his life in front of me, carefully avoiding details of his work. After thinking for a while as to how to stop this exo-sonic reaction, I hit upon this very good idea. I pretended to fall asleep. The reaction stopped and he went to sleep instead (he might have pretended too for some reason… I don’t care). Seeing him apparently asleep, I wondered what were the reactants in this chemical reaction.
Size does matter – the size of the wallet
The last place we visited was Vrindavan. Legend says that it is here that Krishna spent his childhood enchanting and protecting the villagers around. After a painfully long blabber about how lucky we were in being able to set foot on the same land as Krishna once graced, our guide, in his own style of Hindi, ushered us into the main temple. The little idle of Krishna was indeed enchanting. But all the happiness you might ever get by taking a Darshan of this marvelous idol was marred by the priests, whose only business seemed to get money out of our pockets to run some old-age home or old-cow home. The chief target were foreigners. That's the reason why size does matter.
Looks like I am ending abruptly, but I can only conclude that I have seen a good amount of real India. I’d like to write more of it, but its getting late and I need to hit bed for a long day at work. So, signing off….
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