Road to India - 8 days to go [Dilli]

Capital of India. One of the liveliest cities of our nation. The historical city famously known as Dilli.

As a child, when we used to live in different places of Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, Dilli always sounded like a dream city to us. Though Mumbai is famous as dream city of India because of its flashy and fast life, beaches, lively people, image as a business magnet, and mostly the cinema industry, but it was far away from us and we were really not able to relate ourselves with Mumbai. Not sure if I am echoing the sentiments of most of the pahadis, but at least for me, the truth is that Delhi was the dream city.

As soon as you are grown enough to know about your nation, the first thing you know about is its capital, the most important place for any nation. With so much history behind it, it was impossible to not get impressed with the city. From the mythological cities of Hastinapur and Indraprastha to different buildings starting from 11th century AD, its every page has significance in making today’s India. Watching it on television, I was always mesmerized by the sheer beauty of the place next to Yamuna river. Every January 26, it gave the feeling that Delhi is the soul of India, a mixture of all different states and people. The personification of unity in diversity.

My first visit to Delhi was in December 1989, when I was in 5th class. My chhoti bua was getting married, and because my fufaji was from Delhi, it was decided to arrange for marriage in Delhi itself. My other bua and fufaji also used to live in Delhi (at Shahdara) so their home was the base camp and it was planned to have tent for the wedding near their place. Because I had seen only small cities of hill areas such as Pithoragarh, Almora, and Nainital, it was going to be a life time experience for me. The best, I had witnessed, so far in terms of big city was Haldwani (a place with plain area situated 40 miles from Nainital). The tallest manmade structures, I had seen so far, were 4 storey houses or hotels. Those days, our long journey from Pithoragarh to Delhi couldn’t be completed in one shot. After 11 hours of bus marathon, we reached Haldwani, the door from hills to plains and stayed at a relative’s house, a place for night halt.

Next day, one of its kind journey started with another bus. I remember vaguely that it was a Kathgodam Dipo bus. My starry eyes were all blue with the dreams of big red fort, Shahjahaan and Shershah Soori roaming around in that place on their Arabian horses, the Qutubminar where Iltut Mish is putting few last bricks on its top most storey, the Yamuna river where young Kauravas and Pandavas are taking rest after a big hunt in the jungles. Bus was running with at least 60 km per hour, but it felt like it’s running like a super jet. When you are used to curvy roads of hills, where bus crawls with speed of 15 to 30 kilometers per hour, speed of 60-70 really feels like a jet. It is the great relative theory of great Einstein and I was seeing the live example of that. With the first few rays of sun in early morning, some high storey buildings welcomed us. We had reached Ghaziabad and were trying to count number of floors in each building from the running bus. The highest one, I counted, was a 26 storey building. We finally reached Delhi bus station (ISBT). Anand Vihar bus station didn’t exist at that time, so we had to travel by auto / taxi for 1 hour to reach bua’s house in Shahdara.

We stayed in Delhi for almost 8-9 days and had loads of fun. First time in my life, I saw people from different states. We used to play a lot with children of a madrasi family (my bua’s neighbors). Important point is every south Indian was madrasi for the senior people of our family, and I used to tell them that they are from Tamilnadu, they are not madrasi. We played a lot of ‘chhuppan chhipai’, ‘chhune ki’ in those days, and got two days to visit all the nice places at Delhi. Lal Qila, Chandani Chawk, Jantar Mantar, India Gate, Raj Ghat, Qutub Minar, Lotus Temple, Cannaught Place, Palika Bajar from that time is still crystal clear in my memories. Really, I found Delhi more beautiful than I thought, it will be.

Then, I got multiple chances to come to Delhi throughout my childhood (almost every 2nd or 3rd year). We visited more and more beautiful places, and started knowing about the ugly side of Delhi as well. There was pollution (pre CNG and pre metro era), increasing crime rate, careless blue line buses (Dadaa faced the brutality of these buses and couldn’t walk for one year because of these buses in 1999), and endless crowd. All in all, a tough city to survive. My longest stint was for almost 6 months in the first half of 2004 during my last semester of college (training period). I used to live in Maharani Bagh / Kalaka Ji area with 4 of my friends, and had some great time. People sometimes call it struggle time, but for us it was a fun time. It would need a separate chapter to write about that six month period; I have to move on for now.

Now for last 7 years, is Delhi for me another place for night halt? Technically ‘Yes’, but in reality ‘No’. Whenever I have to go to Nainital from US or Bangalore (and then return journey), I stay in Delhi for at least two days. I’ve my dear relatives staying there. I’ve me dear friends staying there. I still feel that this is the soul of my nation. I still feel like visiting Chandani Chawk, though time does not permit. I still feel like sitting on the benches of lotus temple, I still have thirst to touch the Rajput swords at Lal Qila. Dilli is still a Dream City!

- Neeraj Mathpal
July 13, 2011