Depressing Delhi

For real! Normally I don’t do this, as I love the uniqueness of each city. And I have personally seen too many friends/relatives badmouth Chennai, and still think that is such a hateful attitude to take towards any place.

But this time, I too make an exception. Delhi was dirty, dreary, depressing and almost appallingly impersonal and terrifying. The people I knew there and met were lovely. But the city itself?

From the searing 43.6C heat that greeted us when we landed there, to the security person routinely going through the airport rubbish bins for bombs, it was all a bit too grim and grey for me.

The security thing really gave me the heebie jeebies. Metal detector doorways everywhere I went: at the impressively modern metro rail stations, Pahlika Bazaar, Connaught Place…

And Chandini Chowk! What a misnomer. And the Red Fort standing in the middle of all the decay and dust like an anachronism. Looking dirty, but still imposing.

I am not sure if it was because of the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar. But every time I’ve gone to Delhi, there have always been thousands of people stretched out at all the main train stations there: New Delhi, Old Delhi and Hazrat Nizammudin. This time was no exception, with my Hazrat experience taking the cake!

We were 5 of us, and the driver, bundled into one Maruti Esteem, and being driven from out hotel rooms near Old Delhi train station. In a car whose boot was mostly filled by the LPG cylinder that provided the ‘green’ fuel for it.

So, 6 of us, plus our 9 bags squeezed in anyhow. The taxi, though filled to the brim, was proceeding fairly rapidly towards Hazrat, thanks to the 11pm light traffic on the roads. The train to Dehradun was due to depart at 12 midnight from Hazrat.

Then we ran into the IPL crowds dispersing after the match (Apr 18). The Feroz Shah Kotla stadium lights were all still blazing brightly.

After a fraught few minutes when the car barely moved a few inches every few minutes in the traffic snarl, we finally crossed the busy stretch and then reached Hazrat, with a few minutes to spare. The usual haggle with the porters ensued there and SK finally struck the deal with 2 of them (thanks to our numerous bags, we needed 2 porters). A wheelchair for MIL, who can’t walk up steps, was also arranged.

And then suddenly, the lights went off. All of them!

A power cut at a main train station! I couldn’t believe it – I’d never seen such a sight in all my life, and I’ve travelled extensively by trains all over India.

So, I waited confidently for all the lights to come back on again immediately. Surely, there would be a generator or inverter or something. But no such thing happened.

Time was ticking by, we had to get to the train. So, we split into two groups, SK pushing MIL along, having to go to our train via a different route due to wheelchair access restrictions. Me, following both porters and Amma following me, holding little N’s hand. All in complete darkness in this unknown place.

As soon as we reached the shelter of the station building from the car park outside, the whole thing took on a nightmarish, unreal quality. All the available flat floor space in the station was completely filled by sleeping people. The porters, and all of us, walking oddly so that we could carefully step between each sleeping person and not stamp any of them.

The porters, however, being men carrying weights, wanted to go as quickly as possible. Amma, being old and not having good night vision, could not. So the gap between me and Amma & N widened. There was no time to stop and even scramble around to see if I could locate my cell phone for a bit of light.

Till finally, they could not see me in the dark and I resorted to screaming instructions.

“Amma, keep coming straight.

Steps ahead, careful. There are still more people on the floor, paathu vaa”.

Amma, turn left when you are at the top of the steps and go straight till you see the next set of steps on the left, leading down to the platform

Vandhachu, the train is here, just a few hundred yards more, I am waiting here….”

And to check our seat numbers on the train reservation chart, one of the porters had to use the backlight from his cell phone.

Made it, finally. And mercifully, the power is on in the train. But SK still hasn’t reached here with MIL. Where is he? With 5 minutes to spare, they too reach. We are all set to leave for DDN.

But there is still no power in the station.

Back there at Feroz Shah Kotla, the lights must still be blazing bright….