Delhi Blues...

Its been 8 months since I came to Delhi - and BOY am I loving it (P.S. - just became a fan of "I love New Delhi" on Facebook now!)

I have semi-permanently stayed in many places apart from Bangalore in the last decade - Lets see.. mm..Manipal, Madras(Shudders), Hyderabad, Mysore, Bombay.... A long list by any standard- but I have never come across a place like this! So like many blogs before this, let me try and list down the things which were like super strange for me (Read: Hairy Black Dosa eating Madraasi in the local context) when I came here for the first time. Some of these points are positive, and some negative. But all of them add to the flavour and make Delhi, DELHI- unique and likeable

1) Delhi is probably the ONLY place in the world where one can abuse someones mother AND sister in the SAME sentence and get away with it. Maa-Ben Gaalis are HILARIOUS for people like me. Some guys are SO abusive that BenC is usually used in place of commas (a breather, a pause) before finally landing the final maternal punch... this several times in a normal conversation!

2) People here have Dosa and Idli for DINNER!!!! - I promised that I would treat my colleague to a good South Indian breakfast of Idlis, Dosas and so on.... Before I could finish the sentence, a sort of a disgusted look had come on her face... And she was like " YOU HAVE DOSA AND IDLI FOR BREAKFAST???".... Huh... We South Indians dont now anything. Needless to say, these people have Jalebi for breakfast!!!! HOW!

3) FENTABULOUS infrastructure - Part of the reason why I love Delhi so much, I think, is because of the infrastructure that it boasts of. I have always been the sorts who got turned on by wide roads, long flyovers, well lit street corners, metros, subways and so on... Agreed, Delhi is like Del-gaon compared to Shanghai or Del-halli when compared to a Moscow or a New York... But hey, in India, it ROCKS on this front. (And maybe.. just maybe... (Bombayites can close their eyes now)... this fact is magnified because ive come from a city like Bombay where the infrastructure cant support even half the present population!)

4) THE CHICKS... ok.... maybe I can reserve this point for another blog... or a book maybe

5) Traffic sense - NEGATIVE! On my first day here, I was at the company guest house in this place called New Friends Colony. A B-school friend of mine (Bhuvan) who lives in Gurgaon was on my side of town.(Read: South Delhi) So he asked me to come to Defence Colony to meet him. So I set out on an auto. The route that this guy took, saw us on this 10-lane road, 5 on each side (NOT exaggerating here - some sort of ring road - refer to point no. 3!) where we were cruising along at an alarming speed. (65-70 kmph for a vehicle that was not designed for speeds more than 35 kmph). Now imagine this... We were on the middle lane with 2 lanes on each side. Something BIG and BLACK overtakes us from the left... ZOOOOOM... at the lights, I realised that it was one of those BMW SUVs but thats not the point im trying to make. This same Beemer gentleman is on the left most lane now, AND HE TAKE A RIGHT TURN... AND HOW! This might not sound very odd in India, but if we consider the width of the road, the time of the day (around 7 in the evening, peak hour), the size of that junction, the speed at which he accelerated from 0 to atleast 60kmph, and so on..... You can imagine how incredible a sight it must have been!...

6) THE FOOD - Sigh. Delhi is any foodie's mecca - PERIOD. The most brilliant food I have ever had in my life. Kebabs, Tikkas, Parathas, Pooris, Daals, MAKKKHHUN...this list of cardiac arrest inducing, mouth watering items are never ending really.

7) SHOWSHAA - This is something a Bangalorean like me has never come across - atleast not in this magnitude no... We South Indians have always been on the conservative side.

Let me see I can bring the difference out between what happens in the South and here, making use of 2 hypothetical father-son pairs (one from say Madras, and the other from Delhi)

SI Daddy: "Son, if you earn 1 rupee, then spend 25 paise on housing, 25 paise on food, invest 25 paise.. and save the rest" (This btw being one of those hep-SI daddies... who save only 25% of their income - operative word here being "only")

NI Daddy: "Son, if you earn 1 rupee, then I insist that you spend 1 rupee on the car, 3 rupees on eating out and 5 rupees on everything else" (Boy am I gonna get SO beaten up for this)

This, ladies and gentleman, is what I define as showshaa!... Everyone MUST know that you are living a good life - Keeping up with the Joneses can now be rephrased to "arrey, Keep up with the Bhatias da puttar!!" - The asian paints "Golf Links Ilaakha" wala ad hits the nail on the head really.

8) SPORTS FACILITIES - Another reason why I love this place so much. If you throw one stone, you hit 4 sports complexes - Playing a sport here is really affordable! For instance, in summers, I was playing tennis everyday @ 500 bucks a month - this with a coach on a cement court! (Then ofcourse, you have courts where you need to book a month in advance and then pay 1200 bucks and hour - but thats for people in point no. 7!). There are cricket grounds everywhere. It is of little wonder that the Delhi Ranji team has risen in the last few years. The opportunities available are tremendous. (Let me not start talking about Siri Fort people - I will LOSE it if I do - maybe some other day, some other blog.)

9) 20 bucks for a bottle of beer - CHEEEERSH.. ... burp - I think the differential between retail prices and the rates at a pub will be the largest in the country. So a bottle of beer that can be procured for Rs. 20 in a "THEKKA", can go as high as 300 Bald Gandhis in some pubs!

10) BANGRA POP! - Though Im not much of a clubbing sort of a person, I have been to quite a few since I have landed here. (I would just like to re-establish the fact that I have 2 left feet before a beer or two and that I am John Travolta's daddy after 4). So this is how it goes in a club. Till around 7:30 in the evening, its a normal pub - i.e. they'll play AWESOME music (not very different from what you get in Pecos, Bangalore)- So there will be a little bit of Zepplin, a little bit of Floyd, the Beatles and sometimes if you're lucky, even some Morrison. Till then, it is (what is a huge concept here) "Happy hours" -Alcohol at HALF the rate. Even then, the establishment's neon lit fly killing machine is at its buzzy loudest - More flies than people. Then at 7:30, the waiter comes around for the last Happy hour order. At this point, they music shifts from being AWESOME to "GHASTLY" - and by this I mean some crazy "House" music and techno. If you look around at this time, you will notice a lot more number of heads, most of which would be bobbing up and down, enjoying their music. This is also around the time by which I have drunk myself numb - so that the music is slightly more bearable.By 9:00, Exit remotely-something like-but-not-exactly-music , Enter BANGRA POP. The establishment COMES ALIVE. Sheesh.. UNHEARABLE music sung in the vilest language known at decibel levels which would crack concrete. (Makes Tamil rock sound like a lullaby) - People just LOSE it then. They are ALL over the place. Hands, legs, beer bottles, turbans, duppattas. etc etc.

These are just SOME of the things which make Delhi, DELHI.If I live for a while longer, I shall sit sometime, and complete this blog. Having said so much, I might be killed before the new year!

For now, I shall go back to work!

Signing off for the last time this year - BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE