The most mesmerizing moment was when the flight was hovering over Delhi waiting to burn some rubber on the spanking new runway of T3. There was haze but sparkling fireworks were cutting through it to reach the aircraft it seemed. The illuminated buildings, houses, shops and runway were reminding me about what time of the year it was. As the door opened, air mixed with fire-crackers fumes gushed in and I knew I was home.
T3 is just awesome - it is engineered keeping in mind the mega infrastructure required to support movement of a billion people. Given the size of our population, we should invest more in such gigantic projects. Rather than having a public transport system that is always crowded (Metro, Buses etc) careful estimation should be done to balance demand and supply. Although T3 is quintessential of such large scale infrastructure but it has its own flaws, which is another story.
As true with most of the Delhites, I confess that I too haven't been to so called 'tourist' attractions in Delhi. But luckily this time I had this opportunity to visit such places. I visited Red Fort, Humayun's Tomb, India Gate, Lotus Temple and Qutub Minar. Of these, Lotus Temple was just pure peace. I was confounded by the peacefulness of that place amidst such a chaotic metropolitan. I recommend you to visit that place.
Commonwealth games minus the scam did help the city in an image makeover, but I must say Delhi will be a WIP (work in progress), at least for the next 25 years to come. Where else you can find fully functional Metro track with under construction station? Talking of Metro, I witnessed failure of the entire system for several hours and the plight of people affected by it. It is difficult to manage such a heavily ridden system, but this does call for added failsafe mechanisms and alternative measures that can respond immediately to such failure.
The city is growing so is the consumerism. Some satellite towns developed rapidly in the past decade have nothing but a perplexing mass of shopping malls, multi-storey apartments and gigantic office buildings. Inflation is at all time high. Comestibles are getting expensive day by day, I doubt 6th pay commission and ever increasing salaries can keep up. The country boasts of producing a Lac Rupee car to be read Tata Nano, but how logical it is to add another set of wheels on the crippling traffic system. And how Nano addresses the ongoing clamour of green house, carbon credit and all the Al Gore stuff? This is where Metro rails in. DMRC has a critical role to play. There have been reports that many white collar workers who previously used to go fossil all the way to their workplaces have limited their travel on IC engines to the nearest Metro station. Metro is definitely a greener and faster mode of travel especially during peak hours. I am glad that Delhi is leading the Metro baton, I hope rest of the metropolitan cities also adopt similar Mass Rapid Transport systems.
Metro alone can do little, government can play its role by levying heavy taxes on high engine capacity automobiles, families with a second or third car and having a complementary door-to-door type transport system that promotes commuters to use public transport.
Breaking the traffic - lets talk about the great Indian wedding. I was lucky to attend a wedding during my trip. I must say that things have changed since last time I attended a marriage. That did took me off guard. But I had great time at the wedding had a lot of fun and got a valuable lesson indeed - do not wear Kurta in a wedding.
Well I have finished my quota of deviating from the 'travel' theme for this post. In conclusion, it is always nice to go back and mingle with your roots, your family, your friends and reminisce about the time you spent there. It is always refreshing to go home. And it is important too, as it keep reminding you of who you really are, where you came from and sometimes where you actually want to go.
As I say to all the people I meet, you must visit India at least once in your lifetime, you will be amazed by the rich cultural heritage and striking diversity of the country. Where else you can find snow, desert, mountains, beaches, forests, lakes, rivers, tigers, temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras, stupas, jalebi, golgappa, idli, holi, diwali, eid, christmas - everything - in one country.
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