When Love & Hate Collide

Somebody recently asked me how I've enjoyed my Delhi experience. There were just too many things to take into account before I could give her a straight answer! Here goes..

1. Walk down Janpath at night and you'll find an empty road (it's downright creepy). Come back the next afternoon and you'll find yourself in the middle of a bustling market. These hawkers have perfected the art of space preservation. Give them 50 square feet of space and they'll happily throw their clothes one on top of the other. It becomes our job to wade through these piles of clothes (each with a slight tear or tea stain)...most of the time you dig out a just-too short shirt with a nice fancy logo across the front. You'll have to have the willpower of an ox to resist the thought of snatching it up for yourself (Face it..it costs only Rs. 20. You may never know whether it's real or not, but you figure, neither will anyone else).----(Love-1, Hate-0)
2. Creepy 'uncles' in cars and parks. Enough said. (1 added to Hate's score..wasn't it obvious??? :P)
   
3. Public Transport - Once you get a hang of the bus routes, there aren't many places you can't go to by bus. Besides..it's the cheapest way to travel! You have to be prepared for the crowd, occasionally being felt up or pushed around etc etc..but I guess it all evens out in the end. Wouldn't recommend travelling by bus any time after 8:30 at night though for any female. And if all else fails, there is the Metro (amazingly clean for Delhi standards!). It's just too bad that it doesn't cover the whole of Delhi yet ---(+1 for LOVE)
   
4. Right now it's 42 degrees outside during the daytime..and 27 degrees at night. It supposedly gets worse! Blaa..
5. Dilli Haat (Love-3, Hate-2)
   
6. Street food! (especially the Momos) Somehow paranthas taste best at 12-1 in the morning ;) (Love-4, Hate-2)
   
7. You can't wear just whatever you want in Delhi. You run the risk of being stared at, followed and whatever other crap comes to mind. You can think of wearing figure-hugging, skin revealing clothes only if you are going to be driven to and from your doorstep to the desired destination. Mumbai totally rocks when it comes to this though (Love-4, Hate-3)
8. Agreed..you have to sharpen up your Hindi (at least be well versed with some of the gaalis) as well your elbow if you have any plans of staying in Delhi for an extended period of time. You have your share of weirdos here and the occasional people who have the urge to feel up random females..but you do find some really nice people around :) The kind who let you into their lives, chat away to glory, give you advice on good food places to check out, the kind you are not likely to forget for quite some time... (Love-5, Hate-3)
9. The monuments. Delhi is just oozing history from every pore. There seems to be a monument on every corner in some areas. It's crazy! We should really take measures to conserve these national treasures instead of letting them deteriorate til the point of no return. (Love-6, Hate-3)

I guess I could go on and on..but I decided to stop here. Bottom line..I love Delhi twice as much as I hate it :D I have less than a week here before I fly back home and I have this strange feeling that I'm leaving yet another home behind.

This post is dedicated to all those who made my stay in Delhi so memorable..you guys rock! Cheers :D

Have a Nice Day

There are times when you read a book and excerpts of it seem to jump out at you from the page. You suddenly wish you had written those words. At times, they're just the words you wanted to hear for a little reassurance, at other times the author may have put down your thoughts on paper.

Some people seem to have the gift of being able to express their feelings so well on paper that you can't help but wish at some point that you had written it. Bill Bryson is the latest author who evoked this feeling in me. Lately I've been reading his book - "A Short History of Nearly Everything". It's not the kind of book I could read at a stretch unlike the other books of his that I've read, but I would still recommend any of you science enthusiasts to go out and get yourself a copy of this book. Here's an excerpt (it's the last few paragraphs of his book):

"If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here - and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life at all in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course. We enjoy not only the privilege of existence, but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a trick we have only just begun to grasp.

We have arrived at this position of eminence in a stunningly short time. Behaviourally modern humans have been around for no more than about 0.0001 per cent of Earth's history - almost nothing, really - but even existing for that little while has required a nearly endless string of good fortune.

We really are at the beginning of it all. The trick, of course, is to make sure we never find the end. And that, almost certainly, will require a lot more than lucky breaks."

Three cheers to that...

What goes around comes around

You know something is quite wrong with the human psyche when you offer your seat to a much older lady in the bus and everyone including the poor old woman looks at you with a very puzzled and shocked expression. Is it such a surprising act? Maybe it just doesn't happen as often as it should. I would like to think that if any of my female family members (the older generation) travelled by bus, that a slightly younger woman would give them space to sit if they were having trouble balancing in the isle while the bus driver tried his usual stunts of weaving his way through traffic to reach the next destination just those few minutes faster.

Somehow the art of conversation with random strangers seems to have dried up in most parts of our society. Everybody is constantly on guard and any sort of help rendered by you is initially looked upon with a great deal of suspicion. What ever happened to the random acts of kindness? I don't particularly blame people for their suspicions but it's just quite frustrating when you are genuinely trying to help someone and they look in the opposite direction.

But every once in a while, something happens which just seems to reaffirm my faith in the human race. I was with a friend in a market last Sunday and we were trying to figure out how to get to a nearby market and just how far away it was. Some people just continued walking, others feigned ignorance, some just genuinely seemed to have no clue. Just when we were losing hope, a lady saw us and actually came up to us and asked us if we needed help. She gave us directions, told us how much it should cost to go by auto and advised us against walking because it wasn't that close by!

There's just something about experiences like that which make you feel like the world may not be such a bad place after all. I guess it goes to show that if you are at receiving end of those 'random acts of kindness', the chances of you be tempted to indulge in them yourself may be just a wee bit higher. So go out today and help a random stranger. At the end of it, give them your best smile and the smile you'll get in return will not only make your day but also that of the other person.

:D