Driving in Delhi

New Delhi: Delhi sprawls with ease under the wings of the slowly descending Sahara Airlines flight. The tarmac glistens with rainwater and the air outside mists many glasses as we walk down the stairs and into a bus that resembles a beached whale.

Outside the airport cabbies haggle (what's new?). This is my third visit to the Indian capital. The earlier two occasions were for just one day, which were spent in the closed confines of the Taj Mansingh, explaining excruciating details to gawky people who did not care or did not want to be awakened from their stupor.

Delhi awakens me with its majestic laid-back attitude. Mumbai seems a distant slum when one compares the two real cities of India. While Mumbai possesses its glamour world, in Delhi every chacha-bhatija knows either an inconsequential politician or an IAS officer of a certain grade.

In Mumbai, floozies drop names of people who pay to appear on the page three of newspapers, while in Delhi the same floozies cosy up with the new rajas of democratic India. Come to think of it, Mumbai and Delhi survive on the tonnes of passionate wannabes. Do they go home at the end of the day and remove their grime-covered masks and be, well, themselves? I need to know.

If Mumbai has sevpuris, Delhi has chats and cholebatures. You can smell a city's soul by the food it serves. And Delhi is robust. The choles and puris and paneer pakodas dished out by Nagpal Brothers at Nehru Place and the besan ke ladoos by Nathu Sweets can give a well-built man like me a kick. I ventured out the first day along with my boss for an education in food styles. He related with relish the story of an old man in Greater Kailash II who serves at least 500 servings of cholebatures which are cooked without oil and which get sold out within four hours of his setting up his ragtag dukaan at a street corner.

Then there are people like Ashish, my cabin mate in the Delhi office, who just lives to eat. Quite often he greedily looks at the plate I am eating from and demands that I spare the final slice of the pizza or the last morsel of the pakora. Most people I met in the national capital are like him — gregarious and gluttonous. Big-hearted souls.

A major grudge I have against franchised chains is that after a while they all look the same. The sorry state of the Barista coffee shop at Defence Colony had me fuming. The attendants are unfriendly and they speak is as if they are doing a favour by taking your order. Ditto the city's cinema multiplexes. For the people who man the entrances and the popcorn vending machines, you are a potential terrorist. They will scowl at you and at your gentle attempts to get them to look at you for a second, while the pretty lady adjusts the length of her top.

And yes, I was warned about not taking a rickshaw after eight in the evening. It seems chances are that I might be mugged. Ladies are warned not to stare back at tough men who sit on walls and at any elevated stone on their hunches; they are known to start following you to your doorstep. Eve teasing may be a national pass-time, but in Delhi it is also the ritual sport practised by well-connected young men in fancy Lancers.

Delhi is also green; there are islands of shrubs and trees that are more than what I had originally imagined. And the green buses do little contamination to one of the most polluted city in the world; it is better now and a lot of people actually thank the administration for making CNG compulsory for all public transport. Delhi is also fast becoming a major construction site with the Metro project tearing away at parts of the city, shaded from the curious eyes of people like me, with corrugated tin sheets.

Delhi is a city of roundabouts. They are everywhere and they keep simple minds like me confused. Imagine trying to drive with an equally clueless friend for about two hours around the roads near Connaught Place trying to reach India Gate. Finally we have this experience of a Delhi Police Gypsy stopping us for roaming around in a suspicious manner and then bursting into guffaws when we explain our loss of direction. They did lead us to India Gate.

I promise myself that I will try to meet the Indian President, if he allows such pleasures. Maybe I will write to him. I have seen the imperial buildings of Indian democracy on TV quite often, but nothing compares to seeing them bathed in soft yellow lights. After all today is Independence Day.

Back in the hotel, I hear a gentle knock on the door. The old waiter has this wry smile on his face: "Wanting a girl?" I ask him what do I do with her, and he shrugs and smiles again. He explains that he has been asked to fetch one of the girls from a nearby corner by a gentleman and is wondering if I need such services on a lonely day like this. I decline the offer, but he gives an advice: if I ever need I can call up the reception and ask for Munim, that's him.

On the way to Okhla one can see the unopened petals of the Bahai Lotus Temple. On this lazy holiday afternoon while most of my senses ask me to indulge in siesta, I take a green-and-black autoricksaw to the monument. I had read about the beauty and grandeur of the seventh tribute of the Bahaullah followers. But even more than the architectural beauty, it is the kind of people who stand in queues and remove footwear and patiently wait for their turn, that moved me. There is a microcosm of the Indian society, with all its warts present, in that 80 acres.

Firdaus, a volunteer, speaks passionately about how the beauty of the monument draws people to it everyday. "I am not sure if the visitors understand the meaning of a faith that does not have an idol or which conducts services in all major religions of the world. But I am happy that when they visit the temple; they take back a little bit of the thought of universal oneness of religion and mankind." Wise, isn't it?

And can the fanatics be far behind? The Lotus Temple has its own share of cranks and people with little or no brains. The temple will survive more years than the fanatics can ever hope to. After all if you look at Delhi you will see that rulers and their subjects have come and gone; what has remained are the ramparts and ruins and the character of the city.