Day 3 - Central Delhi: Raj Path and Humayun's Tomb

It was dark and foggy throughout. The dome of the Rashtrapati Bhavan was not visible from India Gate. The dull and cold morning meant that there were hardly people to bother us. The walk along the Raj Path till the Rashtrapati Bhavan was shelved. Instead, we headed for breakfast - of all the places in New Delhi - to Saravana Bhavan at the Connaught Place. SS became a huge fan of the mini tiffin. I had my full of the snacks available, since we were not sure when the next meal would arrive.

Our destination was Vijay Chowk, where all the babus are found. We came out of the metro just next to the statue of Govind Ballabh Pant. Huge red walls rose up behind it. Glancing through the holes in the wall, one could see a battalion of soldiers with tents set up inside the compound. This could only be the Parliament House. The security cover was impressive. No doubt, they informed us that entry was not allowed.

The back side (or whatever side) of the Parliament was open for photography (from the outside of course). Ahead of us was Vijay Chowk. A Chinese couple were busy clicking photos in all possible poses in front of the parliament. Ahead, we we were stopped by shrill whistles. The policeman at the junction was indicating us to go back. We wondered whether entry to Vijay Chowk was forbidden.

"Just stay here", said one of the passers-by, "The President is passing by, that's all. Just a useless lady, doesn't do anything, and she's got all the security in the world. Who would even kill her? Whoever came to kill, have killed and gone away...Where are you guys from?"

"Bangalore", we said.

"Bangalore is a good place," he continued, "Nice weather, famous for pubs. Why would you come to this god-forsaken place?"

We smiled.

Up ahead, the North and South Blocks rose up the sides of Raisina Hill. At the end of it stood the majestic Rashtrapati Bhavan. In the mist, it looked dull. The famous Mughal Gardens behind the place was open for visitors, but would be crowded, pointed out one of the passers-by. There were lots of people ogling at the building, and posing for pictures in front of the cannons.

"I want to go in, mummy," said a little girl. Mummy was not impressed.

"You can't, darling. This is the White House of India," she explained.

There was crowd aplenty at Humayun's Tomb - not only the foreigners, but also school kids - some of them well behaved, the others utterly uncouth. The school boys were ever after foreign ladies, some of them even boldly saying, "Hello, will you come with me?". A few children who were harassing two old ladies at the canteen were driven away by SS (I had been right about the 'next meal'. There was hardly anything available there). Add to these there were also a bunch of idiotic Americans, loud and boisterous, jumping up and down everywhere.

The place however was immensely beautiful. As you enter, on the right, a broken down arch leads to the tomb of Isa Khan built by Sher Shah Suri, predating the main tomb by 20 years. Sadly, the place is not well maintained and the tomb looks run-down. Humayun's tomb, by itself, is a beautiful structure. Set on a high pedestal, the red and white structure was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal. We spent a good four hours there, even sleeping on the grass for a good half hour, as trains hooted behind the tomb, at the Hazrat Nizamuddin station.

To the west lay Safdarjung's Tomb. The old rickshaw driver demanded 50 rupees. Feeling pity on him SS acceded to the demand. After a less-than-15-rupee ride, SS was incensed. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be pitiful.

Safdarjung's tomb is another hidden gem, as beautiful as Humayun's Tomb, but badly in need of renovation. The place is exclusively used by courting couples. Apart from the odd-firang clicking photos, we were the only tourists there. As we sat down reading the guide to plan for tomorrow, the guard approached us. He took up the opportunity to be our guide. "What do you know about the place?" he asked us, "Safdarjung, the governor of Oudh, was given a commission by the British. The hospital, airport and all the things on his name were built by the British." It was time to leave.

Pic of the Day:

Day 2 - Red Fort and Central Delhi

Delhi Metro Rocks! SS became an instant fan, the moment he saw the spanking stations and the trains. It is comparable to any world-class metro. There's a near-airport-like security at each station, with bags being screened an all. In some stations, people actually stand in line to board the train - at least until the train arrives. Our eyes lit up the moment we saw the metro map and spotted the station at the Qutb Minar. It was only later we realized that most of the lines in the map were under construction. We took a three day pass to travel as many times as we want.

As soon as you enter through the Lahore Gate at Red Fort, the first sight that greets you is a machine gun pointed at your chest. "What if that CSF soldier sneezes and accidentally fires that gun?" asked SS. The thought is scary - not that it would happen, but if it did, it would just be dismissed as a small price for our "security". The only ones to lose would be the near and dear ones of the victims. Security however, does not protect you from the stray dogs that wander around the Gate. Today, a large one took a liking to my camera bag. I had a real tough time driving it away.

The decision to start early morning at the Red Fort was both good and bad. There were none of those Tamil Champus in their weird costumes and poses obstructing our photos. We had the place to ourselves, to click as many photographs as we wanted. However, reaching early meant that there were no shops open inside the Fort - even the restaurant would open only at 11:00 AM. We had to do with biscuits for breakfast!

The handicrafts museum was a disappointment. After a lengthy post-lunch walk from Pragati Maidan metro station, the exhibits were just a few. A lot of impetus has been given for converting the place into a mini-market, where artists from various states produce and sell their wares. Jantar Mantar was no different. It pales in comparison to its illustrious cousin in Jaipur. There were only four main structures, not so well maintained. The most impressive of the four was the Misra Yantra, more famous for being the symbol of the 1982 Asian Games. There were some explanations given as to what it does, using words such as Meridian and Declination, all of made no sense to me. There was a moderate crowd (with usual mix of champus), who were more interested posing for photos on top of the various structures than on their functioning. The gardens around the place were full of couples busy fondling each other in a public show of affection. After all, it was Valentine's Day.

The situation was no different at Purana Quila. Manoj wanted me to click the photo of him and his girlfriend. He didn't have a camera of his own. I obliged happily, and have promised to send him the photo once i reach Bangalore. It was however, already evening when we stepped into Purana Quila. The only thing that interested us was the Sher Mandal - believed to the library from which Humayun fell to his death.

After the disappointment at Karim's yesterday, we were satisfied with two sumptuous meals on Connaught Place - lunch at Kwality's on Sansad Marg, and dinner at Punji Balluch, opposite to Palika Bazaar. Kwality's had a toned-down ambience, with sober interiors - like any fine-dining restaurant you would come across. Balluch was more colorful, and also decked up for Valentine's Day (with nobody threatening to marry off people over here). Both places were expensive, but the food was worth it. Perhaps we were aided by our hunger - developed through the long walks we had had during the day.

Pic of the day:

Day 1 - Old Delhi - Juma Masjid and Red Fort

A narrow stair leads up amidst the shops selling car parts. At the top is the neat but small reception of New Palace Hotel. The room is shady as we expected. With two beds, there's just enough space to walk. A small television sits in one corner. The painting of a flower hangs from the dull green wall alongside a colorful clock. The tiny bathroom is neat enough. From downstairs come the unmistakable honking of vehicles from the street choked with traffic. Outside the balcony, the massive Juma Masjid rises up.

Yeh dilli hai mere yaar...Welcome to Delhi-6

There's a quaint romanticism to Old Delhi. Once you enter this place, you are no longer in the swanky capital city, with its huge buildings and skyscrapers. Life moves slowly here - thanks to the narrow congested roads. People still are in a hurry, as evident from the incessant honking of vehicles to keep the ones in front moving. Cars, rickshaws, cycles, bikes, men and goats - everyone's taken to the roads here. Shops joust for place along the roadside. Glancing up, you can see electric wires crisscrossing - reminding one of that famous mail about Kirchhoff's Law not being applicable to Indian cities.

Tucked into one of the alleys that spawn off these streets, is the famous Karim's Hotel - so famous that it is housed in four different rooms, all across the alley - and still, you have to wait for space. The effect of having a mention in Lonely Planet was evident, as there were an equal number of foreigners and locals. Our experience of a biryani was not really good - both because of the large quantity and because of a just-about-pleasant quality of the dish. The seekh kebabs were, however, quite tender and spicy.

Gate Number 1 of the Juma Masjid stands right opposite to this street. There is one of those wooden contraptions that pass by the name of a metal detector. As expected, it never beeped. As we headed in with our shoes in hand, a gentleman stopped us, pointing to my camera and a notice stuck up there - each camera ticket cost 200 bucks. That was a first in India for me - not the presence of a ticket, but the fact that it costs up to 200 bucks.

The interior was majestic! On the left rose up the magnificent facade of the huge mosque. A vast courtyard stretched in front with three gates at its three sides. A small pond adorned the middle of the square. Children were running around, sometimes creating ripples in the water with their hands, young girls in anarkali-esque costumes were coyly posing for photos, and foreigners in their polka-dot attire were going gaga everywhere. One of them even posed before the Masjid, folding her hands in a namaste sign. With me being busy tinkering my camera, (as always) SS was everyone's favourite choice for having their photos clicked with their own cameras. From the steps leading down from Gate 2, looking eastwards, it is difficult to miss the massive walls of the Red Fort.

"We'll have dinner at the Red Fort", i pointed out to SS.

"Yeah, sure", he said.

"You'll get Lal Quila Basmati Rice there...", I beamed.

For a moment he was silent. "Saala! Pakadke maaroonga tereko!" SS retorted back.

It was almost 5 when we reached the Red Fort. The sound and light show was scheduled only for 8:30. After much deliberation, we decided to skip it. There was a massive security check to get in to the Red Fort. For the first time, that wooden metal detector thingie worked - as i discovered when the guy behind me, a little overanxious to get in, pushed me into it (an act for which he got more than a mouthful from the security guard). However, the guard at the baggage checking point was lax. He never even bothered to have a look at the tripod inside my bag.

At the Diwan-I-Am, we were invaded by a horde of Tamilian tourists, who wanted to be everywhere at the same time. Photography was turning out to be difficult, added to the fact that i was prohibited from using the tripod. After a few shots in the dark, we moved on towards the backside, where is situated the majestic Rang Mahal, the Diwan-i-Khas and other splendid structures. The hordes were moving quite slowly, making photography even more difficult, but at the same time, giving enlightening information from guides and all-knowing parents. One mother pointed to the Khas Mahal, informing her son about how some badshah had built the place. She was not sure which badshah, but it was the guy who was featured in "Jodhaa-Akbar".

A group of foreigners were staring at the magnificent marble arches of the Diwan-I-Khas.

"Look at the marble slab in the middle," said the guide, "that is where the beautiful peacock throne used to be".

"Oh! where is it now?" asked one of the ladies.

"That is not here anymore. It was plundered by Nadir Shah!" replied the guide, "You should read the paper."

I'll check the paper tomorrow for any news on Nadir Shah plundering Delhi.

The Tandoori Kebabs that we had in Karim's at night were good. Shetty confessed that he had eaten better ones. I have a lack of experience in this matter.

Pic of the day: Afternoon break

Delhi Heights (...and lows)

"For God's Sake! Please dress and behave decently tomorrow! I've told my parents that my boss is coming home for dinner!": warned Pragati on Thursday afternoon. Boss? Me? Uh...Since when? I felt like responding in typical Robert De Niro style: "You talking to me?" And what about the decency part? As I was always fond of telling Sundar C Narayanaswamy, I consider myself the epitome of decency. "I don't want you turning up in one of your orange or yellow garbs, and please put away your Australian jerseys", she continued. Ah! so that was it! "Don't worry", I assured her: "I'll be on my best behaviour tomorrow". Knowing me, she looked a bit skeptic, as if I'd just told her the Martians had landed on the ITPL grounds. For me, all this meant a little bit of unpacking, since I needed to take out all those flashy T-shirts I had actually lined up for the trip.

It was my first trip to New Delhi - and it came like a bolt out of the blue (pun unintended, as events later would clarify), courtesy the travel desk in our company, who informed us at the last possible moment that we needed to personally visit the Hungarian Embassy, if we wanted our Budapest trip to materialize. Neither am I allowed to slander about them in public, nor do I consider it my moral right to abuse anyone, so i'll let that pass. Anyway, a little bit of travel never harmed me, and abiding with Pragati's wishes, I turned up in full black - backpack and all - at the office the next day. I further managed to infuriate her ("show-off" was her comment), when I showed her the tie I carried in the bag, "in case I needed it the next day". We had opted for an evening flight from Bangalore to Delhi, which meant that we had to leave directly from the office. We had to take a detour to her house so that she could also pick up all her tax papers (on my insistence). By the time we reached the airport, the sweltering heat had almost drained us - the cab driver had refused to put on the AC claiming that this was "non-AC duty"!

No sooner had we cleared the security checks that Pragati found a seat, crawled into a foetal position and went to sleep. I found a copy of Mid-Day, and got myself busy figuring out the various crosswords(it even had a "Bollywood" crossword! Yuck!) in the paper, all the time trying my best to bug Pragati. To her credit, she managed to stay asleep until the flight was announced. We were in for a surprise when we boarded it - what looked like another teeny-weeny aircraft, actually looked impressive inside. Even though we had non-reclineable seats, they had enough leg space, and not to mention, they even had inflight entertainment capsules. I soon immersed myself into a couple of documentaries ("Some of his quiz stuff", as Pragati would later inform our friends). Food came and went and I gobbled it up with glee. For the starved soul, anything to eat is like manna from heaven - though Pragati seemed to disagree. It seemed like an uneventful flight, until we reached Delhi. Then all the hell broke loose... (...for me. Pragati slept through the whole thing). First came the announcement that we were 15th in the landing sequence at Delhi. Then came the turbulence. The aircraft was being tossed around like a rubber ball. I confessed to Pragati that I was indeed scared. She was quick to point out that a woman was piloting the flight and hence it was no surprise. By the time we landed in Delhi, it was well past 10:00 and we had got a free ride to Jaipur and back. And the biggest surprise of all? It was raining cats and dogs in Delhi.

Since it was my first time in Delhi, I decided to follow the leader and promptly followed her into the pouring rain. By the time we got into her car, we were fully drenched, and I was cursing myself for not carrying the one thing that a Mallu-born-and-brought-up person would never forget to have - the umbrella. It was another half an hour ride to her home, and yes, I did manage to surprise her with my nice manners - I let her do the talking :) The dinner prepared at her home was extremely delicious and mouth watering. By the time I reached the SAP guest house I was half asleep. I do not exactly recollect what happened next, except that I collapsed on the bed, anticipating a long sleep. When I woke up, the day had lit up. But to my utter surprise I saw that the time was only 5:30. Huh? In Bangalore I never get to see the sun until I get out of the house at 7:00. Anyway, since I was awake, I decided to take a tour of the guesthouse. It was a sprawling mansion in itself with magnificently arranged rooms. The room overlooked an elegant park. The cloudy sky gave hopes that perhaps we would get a respite from the heat. Switching on the TV, i found that all the news channels were busy reporting the rains in Delhi. So far so good. After a quick shower, I went down for a breakfast of parathas. Sathish was already there at the table. He related his tale of woes as to how he reached the guest house only at 1:30 in the morning.

Pragati arrived at 9:00 and the three of us left for the embassy in her car. The roads of Delhi are superb, and the absence of traffic jams like the ones we find in Bangalore amazed me. The embassy proved to be another surprise. Before I left for Delhi, me and my cousin had joked about it that perhaps they would be employing people to queue up before the embassy to give an impression that Hungary was also a destination for Indians. Hence it amused me to no extent to actually find a small queue outside the visa counter. The woman at the visa counter proved to be a trifle too much. There were barely 10 people ahead of us in the queue, but this lady was taking almost half an hour to check each visa document. An exasperated Pragati promptly declared that she could no longer stand in the queue, sat down on the ground, and started cursing the country of Hungary. By the time our turn came around, it was also clear that we had to PAY cash to submit our visa documents - a fact that was conveniently forgotten by our travel desk. My expert advice that "we wait and see whether we actually need to pay" meant that Pragati had to go hunting for an ATM as me and Sathish waited at the counter. The lady at the counter dropped another bomb when she informed us that we need to be back in Delhi to collect the passports and possibly for an interview too. So far it had been a day of surprises.

After a whirlwind tour of what's-there-to-see-in-Delhi, Pragati took us out for lunch (that's just a way of speaking - it was not her treat) at United Coffee House in Connaught Place. It was supposedly a place steeped in tradition, since it was in existence since the times of the British Raj. The ambience of the place was good - a jazz joint, with huge chandeliers, it appealed to me immediately. Pragati's sister Manvi also joined us for lunch, and they had a tussle to decide what to order. Finally they agreed on murgh changezi, and I was left wondering how the chicken was related to the Great Khan (Genghis, not Shah Rukh). The highlight of the lunch was, however, a drunk lady who was sitting a table behind us. Perhaps she did not have enough cash to pay for a bottle of beer, so she started a shouting match with the authorities. To drown the whole affair, the volume of the worldspace radio (which was until then murmuring something) was cranked up, but somehow, the lady kept winning. Pragati immediatley declared that she'd lost her appetite. So it was left to me to finish off the chicken, which I didn't.

They dropped me off at the guest house and I immediately went to sleep in the cool surroundings of my room. I was woken up by the buzz of the cab river, who was supposed to take me to the airport. Take me he did, to the International Airport ("Are you so stupid?" asked Pragati, once she was back in office) where I learned that the domestic airport was a further twenty to thirty minutes away from there. I hassled with an auto driver and finally got to my destination, to find that it was across the big runway. Maybe they should just allow people like me to run across the tarmac to reach the other side. As the day ended, there were no more surprises left for me in Delhi. The flight was late, and Jet Airways was no longer like the vision we had on the previous day - just another one of those drab dark blue flights, where I had to entertain myself with the sad songs I had on my iPod. But nature seemed to have something up her sleeve for me....

It was raining when I landed in Bangalore.