Unexpected

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One fine evening you take an abrupt decision to leave for Jaipur after a short vacation in Delhi. It is just past 7, you reach Dhaula Kuan bus stand are annoyed by the regular polluted and dull evening environment, and suddenly good things begin happening.

After waiting for some time a Rajasthan roadways bus arrives, though you prefer Haryana ones not for quality of service but the excellent and speedy driving style. There are no passengers onboard the bus and you board it with few others. It soon starts rolling on Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway and you forget everything and start enjoying the state-of-the-art infrastructure available and being developed alongside this stretch. You witness a long concrete ribbon across the horizon complete with dazzling crystal streetlights. Flowing streams of red and yellow lights of four wheelers pacing up and down the highway. A little further and you see the IGI tarmac, and if you are lucky you might see a touchdown. Its fun to checkout a 24 something lane wide and about half a kilometre long bumper to bumper traffic jam, given that you are travelling in opposite direction, at Asia’s largest toll plaza! Once inside Gurgaon, you experience one of the most extreme commercial landscape available in Indian sub-continent with multi-national giants jostling to show there corporate might by means of glass, concrete, steel and lightings used to extensive scales. Think of an MNC and you find its office there!

Cross this fancy showcase you find regular crude Indian industrial landscape with isolated traces of organized construction, this soon gives into traditional rural terrain followed by vast wildernesses having industrial and agricultural developments. You might get bored in this scenario, a movie on laptop, a few calls or SMSs may be good time-passers.

Night draws dark and bus is nearing Jaipur. For the first time driver doesn’t takes bypass and sticks to NH-8, which passes through city of Amer and you are lucky enough to catch views of Amer and Jaigarh forts under bright moonlight, increasing there glory manifold. Drivers manoeuvres the bus well along the narrow, hilly stretches of roads. You for the first time observe an Air Force Station on outskirts of Jaipur. Beautiful scenes of forts illuminated up above some hills and Lake Palace, before breaking into the Pink City region, which is surprisingly still abuzz with activity at around 12:45 in night, probably because of some festivity. Its nice to find a tastefully modified swift parked at Badi Chauper just beside Hawa Mahal.

You soon de-board at Sindhi Camp and wonder why journeys should be unplanned and somewhat unconscious too!

The French Kiss

Wake Up! Wake Up! sounds in my ears. I pick up my mobile to check time, its just 8:30. We have to leave for submitting the form, said my sister. After some initial hesitation I wake up and went to bath, followed by breakfast and a quick look at the newspaper. Its 9:40 and we leave. The night long drizzle has taken a break. We hire an auto-rickshaw to the Lodhi Estate. The morning rush hour traffic and water-logged roads led to traffic snarls at some bottlenecks. After some time the rickshaw is racing on a Delhi Cantt road. The area has a special place in my heart because of many childhood memories associated. The beautiful boulevard is lined with trees on both sides and is like an urban oasis, maintained by the armed forces. The stretch ends at Dhaula Kuan and now the auto driver takes a different route to avoid the heavy traffic on the Ring Road. He drives through the diplomatic by lanes of Chankya Puri and wades through some roads named on very historic characters. Driving in this area is never recommended unless you are very good at keeping track of roads or are using a highly reliable GPS tracking system. Meanwhile the rain starts again and water begins to fall on me from the sides of the auto. It is Lodhi Gardens on the right so there should be our destination but we are a bit confused now, we ask a number of people but no one seems to know the where-abouts of our destination . Somehow we manage to reach the place, it is Alliance Francias de Delhi. From outside the building seems to be quite posh and we are pleased to go "inside", as rains can intensify at any time. Across the main gate we find long queues of people gathered to submit forms even such a rainy day. The crowd is exceptionally hip and all the very best kinds of fragrances are in the air. People with a wide variety of attires are difficult to overlook and everyone has his/her distinct style. The gate-keeper at the administrative section seems to be a fool to most of the people around. We get a form and fill it and ensure that everything is done. Now we start to wait for our turn, which is supposed to come on a "first-come, first-serve" basis. We are number 45 on the list and number 20 enters the block, we are pleased that we will be free before lunch. But a discussion is going on at the door! "What is this red list and blue list?" ask some inquisitive girls to the gate-keeper. Red ones are people which are pending since last Friday and blue is today's list and as per "first-come, first-serve" blah-blah the blue ones ought to wait till the red list ends. Everyone in the blue list is now perturbed as they are dragged 64 something points in this race! A lot of confusion continues, while people keep on getting disillusioned and leaving the place to find some solace from all the trouble. Many occupy the tables at institutes's cafeteria while others grab seats in the auditorium. Mobile phones come for some handy entertainment, many are now busy chatting with their friends, listening music and playing games. In between we are surprised to find some groups chatting in fluent French as if endorsing the institutes's credentials, these are the students at the Alliance. The day seems to be getting hectic with every passing moment as most of us are not accustomed to waiting a lot, the only good thing is that there is no dearth of interaction and a lot of cultural information is available. A whole lot of informative posters on all possible places, people from different backgrounds, including kids ageing around 12-13 to moms of two! Most have one point in common the lack of managerial skills at the place, which proclaims itself to be the French embassy in India, though it is a cultural centre established by government of France. Its 12:40 and lunch time begins which will end only after 2 in the noon. Meanwhile we go for little snacks, majorly to pass-time and give rest to our feet, as we were standing for the whole day now. After the lunch we are very hopeful that the whole procedure will end soon and we will be able to leave the place very soon. A whole variety of thoughts are coming in my mind now, different plans, I need to this and that, this thing is a must and the likes. In about 50 minutes comes our turn, and my sister enters the administrative block to submit the fee but she is surprised and somewhat perturbed to know that the timing she insisted for are not available. She asks the contact-person for other timings suitable to her but to no avail. So very un-heartedly we have to drop the seat and leave the place. On way back she opts to go to her office and in the way we keep on talking about some other ways of learning the language and getting directly to the next level which begins after about 2 months. It is past 3 and sun is at full glory once again the auto is pacing on south-central Delhi's beautiful yet confusing streets. Humidity has started to take over the pleasant weathers of the morning and I am thinking about the weekend which seems to be going to very humid as MET department at Delhi has predicted unusual heavy rains over the whole week. At Dhaula Kuan we take a very long curve and join the road race on the Ring, the major artery in Delhi's road-network. Lovely to find some gasps of wind helping chill us as the auto speeds at around 60-70 kmph. In the way she leaves for her office and I continue on my way to home, the industrial landscapes of Mayapuri and regular lifestyle in many residential colonies has started to wash the memories of the French Kiss in the heart of Delhi, though I wish to retain them for a long time. I keep on thinking somehow I must be part of such legacy....

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Cosmopolitan...

Image courtesy : pmorgan on Flickr, check usage terms before using the image.

People make a city... And city is surely not a mass of land defined by boundaries, it is something made of people, cultures, commerce, infrastructure and more... Taking a city to ransom by identifying it to particular community is not the right approach. In recent context proclamation of Mumbai as Maharashtrian bastion or last year's incidents of "unhomely" attitude towards students from North-east in certain Delhi University colleges. Such things only spoil city's cosmopolitan image and do little good. As far as the issues like increasing burden of population on resources is considered, better ways of tackling such problems include expansion of city's infrastructural limits, decentralization of resources and job opportunities, increasing living standards across the country and more such positive steps despite going for unruly attitudes and a negative approach...

Another Interaction With Delhi.

Last Sunday, I had my engineering and architecture entrance exam. But the post will loosely move around the proceedings of the day. I almost didn't sleep the whole night. In the morning, we took bus till Dhaula Kuan and then an auto-rickshaw to the exam centre. the auto-rickshaw driver zipped it along the southern boundary of Delhi's central ridge reserved forest. The ride extended into the beautiful by-lanes of the New Delhi. Mesmerising roads lined by a large number of trees and a lot of infrastructure development projects underway. I got few glimpses of the under-construction Airport Express Link of Delhi Metro, the line is supposed to provide fast access between New Delhi Railway Station and Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport with top speeds reaching 120-135kmph. Further we moved to Connaught Place, the central business district of Delhi. It wore a deserted look on early Sunday morning. Next came ITO, crossed Yamuna and then the ride along eastern bank of the river. A lot of activity is taking place along the banks of river, majorly in view of coming Commonwealth Games of 2010. Across the road opposite the river front stands the exam centre. A filthy smell disgusts me throughout the tests. And yes the top floor syndrome continues here also! Add to this I got to sit on the first bench in the paper one. In the paper two the room changed to my happiness, I was no more on the first bench and the pesky smell was gone. Paper two had three drawing questions and the last one was to create a colourful composition of some season. But as I started attempting the question I realised that time was very less and I will have to make something very quickly, so I just didn't gave a thought and started sketching a girl, I think as she would be about 20-22 so girl would be appropriate word, followed by a tree then her companion to fill the space. I just started filling the colours, but soon realised that two eyes were glued to my creation. Oh this was the invigilator, to make it less obvious I sketched two kids, giving the hint that they are Mom and Dad and not some romance ridden couple!In the meantime I completed the exam in the best possible way. after the exam I was not in mood of a bus-ride so went to take Metro. About 2-3 km from exam centre was Shastri Park Metro station. I reached there by Rickshaw and the Metro station was one of the best in Delhi. More importantly you get to see a lot of hip crowd, air-conditioned travel and all the best facilities at almost no cost. For the first time I used Metro to transverse across Yamuna and reached first interchange station and so passed about 20 stations and I was at my destination Tilak Nagar. The whole way I kept on thinking about a lot of stuff including web-pages, evening with friends and more. At home I took some rest but could not resist calling up a friend to meet soon, later in the evening we enjoyed browsing on net, some PC games and a little walk. Rest is only schedule, but living in Delhi is a bliss!


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Suicidal Tendencies Of A Young Nation

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Happy Independence Day to all Indians on 60 years of Indian freedom.

In past 60 years the country has progressed a lot and is now recognised to be a booming economy, but the reluctantly slow pace of growth is something that bothers all the citizens even on 61st independence day of the country.

In all the sixty years the policies of government have been really conservative and slow in execution. Till date our government hesitates taking many a steps which may prove determinant in country's growth pattern. This can simply be attributed to governments' protectionist policies, which inhibit the development of a competitive market.

Some of the facts that indicate reasons of country's growth are listed below, if frequent policy changes are not made on these topics it may seriously affect social, economic as well as political growth of the nation, called INDIA, which is still in its infancy.

1. The government finance policies are not of the calibre required to compete with developed economies and major threats like China.

a) It still doesn't permit 100% FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in many sectors and thereby prevents generation of precious revenue.

b) The GDP growth rate isn't able to break 8% barrier for a long time.

c) Major employment is still in Primary sector (about 60%).

d) Per capita income in terms of PPP ( Purchasing Power Parity) is about $2400 which is less than half of biggest rival, China.

e) A whopping 33% population lives below poverty line, i.e. earns less than $1 per day.

2. Social sector reforms are unexpectedly slow.

a) Country lacks in proper execution of population control strategies, while with a whooping 1 billion population and 1.8% growth the nation is the nation is on course to become largest in terms of populace.

b) Female sex ratio at 933/1000 males is a grave threat.

c) A low education rate of about 65% is something not to talk about.

d) And still the governments promote the caste system by planning to execute almost 50% reservation in all centrally funded institutions!

e) Medical facilities in country are not upto the mark as indicated by the facts like infant death rate in country is 63/1000 births and the labor death rate is unexpectedly high at about 540/100000.

3. The infrastructure in nation has just begun to develop and is critically insufficient in meeting demands of the growing economy.

a) Roads are not very well built, highways are carrying loads beyond there capacity, rural connectivity is not of good quality, cities are witnessing a crunch of road length.

b) Power scenario in country is a serious concern. Proper electricity is a distant dream in rural India while urban regions too face acute and frequent shortages, all despite long existence of these problems.

c) Rural teledensity is a serious concern in modern India, Internet and access to modern communication facilities is very low.

4. Insurgency and Terrorism are biggest problems in the country. The government is not strict enough in taking action against these anti-national elements. To this date even Naxalite groups like MCC are threatening nation by bidding for control of states like Bihar. The problems of Jammu and Kashmir are long persistent.

And the list continues...

Facing such grave and very relevant threats country still contents itself by using self-promoting labels like Knowledge Economy, Software Giant, Super Power in making.....

Well it is time for us citizens to re-define our role in our lovely India's development, hoping the best for my dear country on it 61st Independence Day.