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Summers @ Delhi - One Month Report!

Whew..what a rush its been here..just 1 month into India’s Capital City and am loving every minute of it. Am put up at MDI gurgoan for my summers at AmEx...right now I decided to make the most of the the 2 months Im going to stay here by seeing as much as I can of the much touted Delhi. I was warned by my northie pals that the heat in Delhi is an unforgiving as wearing jeans in the scmhrd library. Being from Chennai I thought I could even walk across Sahara Naked. But It seemed that the legends were true..it was so hot that housewives need not boil the family water to kill them evil germs. They just die if you whisper to them that they are in delhi!

SATURADAY- April 28th

Went for the Senior-Junior meet at Delhi @ Costs Coffee , was nice catching up with fellow mates and have look at out future torchbearers(that refers to the juniors ;) . Good to see a balanced sex ratio in the junior batch (10 girls and 5 guys came to the meet..lets hope the trend continues in all cities too!). Had a great time , with all the seniors giving their gyan to them..Hopefully atleast this time the chances of me going as a stag again to a party should in all probability reduce-hint hint cough freshers party cough ;)




Delhi Snr-Jnr meet outside Costa Coffee



Then Siddarth, Ramya and me decided to take our official tour of delhi. We first headed to Rashtrapahi Bhavan (impressive security I must say the dudes ported automatics- the kind of stuff you see in Unreal 2003)and The Indian Parliament. It was quite lovely sight and made me all the proud to be and Indian but wistfully ponder the fact that such edifices house the so called “Decision Makers”. Sigh. Siddarth had a spanking new Nokia E90 with a x..xx something mega pixel camera and we decided to make the most of it ;)




Us outside Rashtrapathi Bhavan..btw he is wearing my cap..


SUNDAY- April 29th

After some initial confusion about where we should go, our deemed tourist guide, Ramya [purely in the sense that she knows Hindi best and we had no idea about Delhi. In fact I thought Gateway of India was in Delhi and India Gate was in Mumbai and.. and since we hate shouldering responsibility... ;) ]. On our way to Lotus Temple(the locals call it “Bhilai”- I was wondering if the temple was full of cats or something….then I realized it was built by a dude with that name..sheesh!)

On our way we got ourselves killer shades for an unbelievable 10 bucks.. I started to wonder what kind of business/revenue model this dude must have in place….If he can make a living selling 10 rupee glasses outside lotus temple, me doing an MBA for 5 lacs has shown me that I have wasted 2 years of my youth! The Temple bears a striking resemblance to Aussie’s Harbour and is very well maintained. Since footwear was not allowed in the temple, It also gave me sadistic pleasure to see the other two hop around like kittens on a hot tin roof whilst I was protected thanks to my Chennai pavement purchased 20 buck pair cotton socks :)



Da Killer shades..eat your heart out Ray Ban!!


Ramya and Siddarth outside Lotus Temple..Lucky shot not getting any losers in the background!!

 In the gardens leading to the Temple

We then headed down to ISCKON temple which was much to our regret closed for the day but we were ‘conveniently’ uninformed by the security personnel about this..and ironically Ramya ended up buying flowers for the deity which had to be donated to the counter guy who promised her that it would be given to the right addressee. I bet he gave it to his second wife. Don’t ask how, I just know.



Iskon Temple..the slippers make it all the more beautiful..

We then took off for the ‘Times Global Village’ (idea courtesy our guide!)..this was nothing but every ‘country’ having a stall and displaying their wares & stuff for suckers with too much money & time to come and bust it here. Every stall we went into had that country’s so called ‘specialty’ stuff..and it seemed like every damn thing in the store was just meant for a girl. I mean I don’t have anything against that but please there is only so much bling(aka jewellery) and clothes that a guy can see…We were window shopping for quite a bit but then the purse strings broke loose(not me and sid- we are the guys,Ramya’s) and she had to have something from every country…this did not help our objective of wanting to get the living hell out of there a bit. And we were asked our esteemed opinion on her potential purchase[s] which we try to give an informed opinion but came out as fake as Mandira Bedi’s post match Cricket analysis. I and Sid spent more on Aquafina then anything else..& the heat was blistering..hot! (Did I mention It was hot..oh yea..just in case it slipped ur mind..) We went around the world in 3 hours ..literally(China,japan,US/UK,Asia,Middle East and I think even Mordor)!



Finally we were sick of the damn ethnic crap that they were selling (I bet there was back office hidden underground with Indians in sweat shops fervently manufacturing everything at half the cost and pushing it off as a Moroccan hat or a Chezh Crystal) and we went to the last stop- South Africa. Sid and me decided that if we were ever going to tell people that we spent 3 hours here roaming around like a bunch of zombies, let us have something to show for it at least! So we went to this African dude who was selling bracelets and we got one each. I thought it would look pretty cool to show it off in the office but I realized that it had a touch of effeminisim attached to it (aka was quite gay/worn by girls apparently) . I refuse to be cowed down or intimidated by society’s sense of fashion and norms on accessories so I port this bravely where-ever I go (in spite of the cat calls I get when I walk on these mean streets. Bad Boys.)




Egypt World- That little guy is Anubis the Jackal God..dunno who the big Idol


Aquafina..the only real thing worth buying!!




In Japan I think....had to have a pink ribbon..i guess it all started here..




...and ended here! Bracelet Buddies striking a pose!

Some Dude in Stilts selling Popcorn..how the hell is he gonna reach them customers?! I was tempeted to get one but i thought he throw it on my head..

Sid in between Petronas Towers....



A wonder in front of another ;) Ramya in front of the Taj..matching matching white lol!


Me Trying to look cool next to the Pyramids..

Le tour Effiel..Nous sommes touts francais!!

Whew..a month gone by..and I have to admit its been mind blowing..travelling from gurgaon to Delhi itself is like an adventure..1st a rick then auto then bus then the metro..and taking a call center cab at 11:00 to get back home and trying to figure out if the driver is really a dell driver or some fake highway killer one that’s gonna take me to hell..

Whatever it is..Delhi Rocks..this has been one the best months outside home for moi..so many memories..and stuff which ive been waiting to do for a long time finally done ;)

Wait for Part II of the same (if I get to go to interesting sites like where Sonia Gandhi shops for Slippers)..Until then..Raghav out!







Posted by Raghav on Monday, May 07, 2007 at 9:09 AM |

.

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous | 12:32 PM  

WOW!
Never knew Delhi could be so much fun.
Had never been there ;) though...
Nice write up!!
Cheers,
Marutham

Posted by Blogger Marutham | 12:33 PM  

Hey!!
Awesome post!! Sp. for delhi lovers like me..Just loved reading abt it :) BTW, i must tell u ..great job..u r probably gonna see mr of delhi than wht i did in three years..

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous | 10:09 PM  

Love delhi. Was in noida for a bit and the weekend trips to Connaught Place were fun !! Rick->Bus->Walk was my mode of transport ...

If you itching for some decent south indian grub, you may like to try the saravana bhavan on Janpat ... the food is awesome ...

Posted by Blogger RAVi | 10:24 PM  

So its yet another blog frm Raghav n hey i m writing comment on it
Its yet another blog but its one of the best i ll say as this southie is liking our Delhi........
The gud thing is he has taken pains to go around which many people in Delhi hv not n i ll bet they hv not been to these places..................
n hey B.Com tht Rs. 10 Gogs not u should buy atleast fasttrack
n 4 tht shopping with Ramya u can also buy tht for someone u know
n there r some more places worth going do visit them...............

Posted by Blogger Sachin Luthra | 1:40 AM  

@Anonymous: The full stop comes after the sentence

@marutham: Thanks, and nice blog u got there btw :D

@priyanka: Thanks pattu ;) Am planning to see a lot more..as long as Its accessible and I dont roast!

@ravi: yep, CP is my hangout too. I went to Sagar Nath for Dosa's pricey but the food was great. Will go to SBH for sure..Interestingly I had bfast in haryana, Lunch in Delhi and Dinner in Noida..3 eats in 3 states! :)

@sachin: badiya ji, mera fast track glasses I lost them :(

Posted by Blogger Raghav | 11:26 PM  

raghav don't u have any work except writing such lenghty blogs...

keep it short and simple:KISS

---- by ur close friend,sid in the blog

Posted by Blogger sid | 11:12 AM  

@sid: I always belive in the KISS principle. Like you wouldn't believe. You should try it too, if you ever start...blogging!

Posted by Blogger Raghav | 5:12 AM  

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