Ek Ajnabee...

I had been getting 6 hours of sleep everyday until I forced myself last night to sleep early and got up fresh after a really long time. Seems, this act of mine went down well with God as well because the weather was just too pleasant today! I was greeted by a blustery morning, a nice cloud cover and temperatures of around 35 degrees (yeah that’s really cool for a delhi summer day!!). Anyway I was in for more surprises.

As I mentioned earlier, I would travel to the bus stop in the HCC car with other people who worked in HCC and were on their way to office. I just happened to fall into conversation with one of the people in the car. Here’s what happened:

A: Hi I’m Arpit

V: Hi Venkatesh here

Ok so always the worst part is explaining people why the hell am I staying in HCC guest house and traveling in a HCC car when I don’t even work for HCC

A: What do you do in HCC?

V: I’m a trainee here. You’re a trainee here as well?

A: Umm.. well.. kind of yeah. Actually I don’t work for HCC, I work for a firm affiliated to HCC.

V: Then what are you doing in Green Valley? (guest house name)

A: HCC has given me accommodation

V: But you don’t work in HCC

(And it took me another 5-10 minutes to explain what exactly the entire arrangement is. Anyways what’s interesting is what happened next…)

A: SO what do you do?

V: I’m in IIT Mumbai

A: What! I’m from IIT Bombay as well!

V: You must have graduated na! I’m still in second year.

A: No baba. I’m still studying. You must be a PG right?

V: NO! I’m B.Tech and I just completed my second year.

A: WTF! Dude I just completed my second year as well. And I haven’t ever seen you.

V: Nor have I seen you!

(And there I was telling myself thank god I didn’t have to fight an election. I didn’t even know people from my own batch!!)

And as it turned out, we had common friends, he stayed in H7 but spent quite some time in H2, he had been there in the same complex for roughly the same time as I had been and yet… YET we had never met!

The day gets even better

Well I am not sure if I should call it getting better or not... its for you to decide! I reached my stop and got an AC EXPRESS bus within mintues. These buses are AC and are empty as well because they stop fewer times.

As I was half way through, this really cute girl stepped into the bus. She looked about a year or two elder to me. Dressed in a white shirt, black formal pants, she was extremely fair, had long highlighted hair with a small mole on her left cheek. The entire bus was empty but guess where she decided to sit - RIGHT NEXT TO ME! (Despite all the “reserved for ladies seats” being empty). The minute she sat I was hit by this entire burst of awesome fragrance and my mind automatically started playing the song “ek ajnabee haseena se”. She took out a book and began to read. I tried to act all cool and not  look at her (:P). I peeked to look at what she was reading. It was some Law School book. (Nice Arpit. proud of you. Now you know she studies law). All of a sudden my mind changed the song to You’re beautiful by James Blunt and the only lyrics that it repeated – “I saw your face… in a crowded place and I don’t know what to do!” I had 4 stops before I would get down, and the loser that I am, I did not (read: could not) make conversation! As I moved towards the exit gate my mind continued the song and again got stuck at one particular line… ”I will never be… with you!”
But yeah, one thing now, I will try to board that very same bus everyday in hope for some more luck again some other day!

Dlilli Chakkar.. yeh hai Dilli Chakkar

So my accomodation is towards the outskirts of Delhi. You know, it actually reminds me of my nani's small town Raigarh in Chhatisgarh. You've cycle rickshaws running across the road, loads of pedestrians, infinite amounts of construction activites, unbearable heat, yet a very homely feeling!
Obviously before running away to a new place, you obviously like to find out the teeny weeny details that might come handy. Trust me the most I had heard about, even more than the girls, the heat or the street food, was about the transport here. And yeah most of it did turn out to be true...

Buses

• The first thing you would obviously hear is about the (in)famous BLUELINE buses. However it turned out not totally but to quite some extent the contrary. Now since the govt buses are few you have these private buses running, and I must say their service is impressive! But yeah it gets worse when 2 blueline drivers want to race.. man god save you if you're a pedestrian!! 
• So these blue line buses stop on da normal stops.. nd shout their lungs out to catch hold of passengers..
  And sometimes they will talk to you personally such that you will be convinced that this is the only bus that can take you home! And if you're just walking along the road, they start gesturing to you as if he knows where you're going and the bus is going to follow exactly the same route.
  
• Delhi ladies, however fat they may be, however ugly or however old.. will have too much of self esteem
  -In the bus, to a woman looking 30-40 yrs old
  Me: aunty zara bag utha dijiye, mujhe baithna hai
  gives me a taunting lookAunty: Main tumhaari aunty nahi lagti.. aur waise bhi upar pado.. ladies seat hai
  Me: aunty mujhe pata hai.. jab koi lady ayengi.. main uth jaonga..
  Aunty: tum yahaan nahi baith sakte.. jao warna conductor ko complaint kar dungi..
  I began to retreat when another nice aunty vacated her seat and occupied the ladies seat and asked me take her place.. GOD BLESS HER! :D
  
• The bus conductor and his assistant will always occupy 2 seats! Man we're paying for the ride not you
  
• Once in a blue line busPassenger: 1 nizamuddin tak ki dena
  conductor: 5 rupaye
  gives a 10 rupee noteconductor: sir chutte dijiye
  passenger: (in a loud angry voice) arey chutte nahi hai! kahaan se laon chutte
  conductor: sahaab pls utar jaiye..
  and the conductor forced him out of the bus!.. AWESOME!
  
• this passenger gets onto the bus, goes and occupies the seat.. After sometime gets up, goes to conductorpassenger: 1 supreme court ki dena
  conductor: sir aap jahaan chade the.. woh supreme court hi tha!!
  
• And guess what, as I told you about ladies, its same with the girls. Have an air about themselves but no gives a damn about them. This often leads to fights within buses with girls thinking that the guy is trying to flirt with her.
  That is still fine. It happens in Bombay too sometimes.
  But guess what. I have often seen the conductor giving a toffee to the quarelling girl to shut her up.. mast idea bey!!
  
  

Auto Rickshaws

• Ok, so the delhi auto waalas have definitely lived up to their reputation. The meanest, shrewdest (dont know if dats a word) nd da most cunning people you'll ever find. And the unity among the auto drivers is like crazy!!
  
• me: bhaiya badarpur jaana hai.. kitna door hai..
  driver: arey paas mein hi hai sahab..kuch 2-3 km par chalke nahi jaa payenge..
             paas mein hi hai..  yahin bagal mein.. chaliye..
  me: kitna lenge
  driver: sahab bas 100 rupaye hoga!
  
• Foremost, I dont understand why these Delhiites find long distances so short
  me: pragati maidan kaise jaate hai?
  arbit guy: arey bas yahin kuch 5 km door. jaldi pahuch jayenge
  
  me: ye sarai chowk kahaan padti hai?
  arbit guy2: ye to raha saamne ... bas wo dekhiye saamne.. lagbhag 2km door
  
• And secondly why the hell do they talk in terms of km instead of time
  me: ye jangpura ke liye kitna time lagega?
  arbit guy 3: bus 3 km sir
  
  me: bhogal ki ticket dena.. jab ayega toh bata dena
  bus guy: aaram se baithiye sir.. ab toh 8-9 km door hai..
  ....???
  
• So i'm standing at pragati maidan bus stop.. da actual maidan is like a stone's throw away from der.
  Arbit person (AP): bhaiya pragati maidan jaana hai kitna loge..
  Auto: Sahab door padega.. 80 lagega..
  AP: 60 dunga..
  Auto: sir na apki na meri.. 70.. chaliye..
  AP: chaliye..
  and b4 i cud tell da poor guy its walking distance.. da auto waala took him 2 some random street far away

Cycle Rickshaws

• The slowest, cheapest and lamest means of transport, even lamer than walking in the heat.
  
• but yeah, these guys consider themselves heroes as well.. you will always find these cycle rickshaws occupying the right most lanes of the road.. wtf!
  
• me: bhaiya.. sarai chowk ka kitna loge
  him: sahaab 20 rupaiya..
  me: par auto rickshaw toh 15 leta hai.. aap unse zyaada kyu loge?
  him: sahaab unki toh fatfattiya hai.. unki toh gaadi tel se chalti hai.. humaari toh paseene se chalti hai!
  always maaro senti.. undoubtedly 

Have travelled by metro only once.. so not many anecdotes to share.. but yeah.. metro is mindblowing!!

Bombay lad off to Delhi!

The train journey to Delhi was insane. My co-passengers were a group of passout engineers had sneaked off on a vacation after telling their parents that they were out for a Yoga Camp. As it turned out, 1 other guy sitting there was a true "yoga bhakt" and got all senti about yoga and started teaching us Yoga!! For the next 10 minutes, all of us were sitting cross legged on our seats eyes shut and trying to realize "the energy that lies within". Lol
Being summer season, lot of people were left on the waiting list and many of them had no problems climbing into the train with waiting list numbers of upto 150. So there we were, 10 people sitting in the space of 6. Yeah.. 4 waiting list people extra there! Some shared berths, some slept in the pantry and some actually slept on the floor between 2 berths.. overall as i said.. INSANE!

Delhi arrived at 11 in the morning. I was not greeted by anyone but the freaking Delhi heat! Man is it hot! The company had told me that they would send a driver and searched hard to locate him.
Let me digress a little here and tell you a little about how I got the intern. So bascially I applied to HCC through someone I knew there who in turn helped me get an intern at Tandon Consultants. Now, when I told the HCC guy I had no place to stay in Delhi, he said he would give me a guest house.

So the car to pick me up was from HCC. I soon located the car and was off to the guesthouse again provided by HCC.
And here it was in the car that the driver blasted some of the weirdest Haryanvi songs, even weirder than the likes of Pani waali paani pyaade etc which I have heard back in IIT.
These included:
1. madam baith bolero mein
2. tau gardan na akde
3. mummy karwa do mera byaah

Finally I reached my guesthouse, which I realized was not in Delhi but in Faridabad. Anyway, being an intern I though I would be given a hostel like room with nothing else at all, but I was in for a huge...HUGE SURPRISE! The house was a 4 bedroom house, I had one room completely to me. Attached bathroom and split ac were just the beginning of luxuries. There was a caretaker, who would cook food and do the laundry.. so free food free laundry. The whole house was WI-FI ENABLED! So free net. Some time later I was given a sim card.. So free calling! Man this was insane as it is.. now every morning a car picks me up, drops me to the AC bus stop and the same while returning. All in all this is going to be an awesome 2 months in delhi with lot of sightseeing and catching up with old friends to do.

Why Blog?

Well, I recently landed in Delhi, as a strucural engineering intern at Tandon Consultants for 2 months. Though I have been to Delhi previously, there's harldly a faint resemblance. I never thought I would write a blog but this awesome city, and my unique experiences everyday have compelled me into doing this.
Pardon the little boredom that might prevail while reading, as you know, am a first time blogger.