India Trip ‘08: The arriving, Part II

Oct 18, The check out process at Delhi airport was expectedly short & sweet, something that you aren’t necessarily used to for Air India flight for eg. I walked out of the scanning eyes and questions of the custom officers as a winner, and rolled my trolley through the sea of people in the waiting area. Manish, my brother-in-law had been waiting for hours, though, and thought I took a long time (how perspectives can be different). The first impressions of India, this time as well, were those of a foreigner. It was still dark out, and there was a blanket of strange haze over the entire area. I enquired, but nobody was sure whether it was fog, or pollution. The first new thing that I noticed was the huge gas cylinder in the trunk of the taxi and took up 3/4th of the room. The taxis and autos now run on CNG in Delhi, and, supposedly, this has reduced pollution levels significantly in the capital.

Next up was the train journey from Nizamuddin railway station to Doon. The maruti van we boarded to go to the station looked like a match box. The van shrinks further every time I see it, but fits well on the busy Indian roads. The traffic for one wasn’t that bad thanks to the wee hours of the morning. After watching news and talking to people back in India, over the period of 4 years, I had developed an image of changed India. Unfortunately, so far I had seen none. I didn’t have to wait long, though. As soon as we reached Nizamuddin, I got the first glimpse of prospering India.

Right next to the station, I spotted the Comesum restaurant, a food chain. This seemed to have been modeled based on the food courts back in the west. The place wasn’t built on a big piece of land but still was able to pack in variety of food stalls, plenty of seating area, and a party hall on the first floor. In fact, right next to the entrance, I also noticed a little carousel for kids and a pick-a-soft-toy game that is often placed at the entrance of a Walmart store in the US. It also played jazzy music from time to time. The menu had a wide variety of food items to satisfy your passion of the day, starting from North India style of food to South Indian, and also Chinese items, namely the noodle. On one side was big sweet stall, and on the other a setup for mocktails, and then a kulfi wala in the middle of no where. Mostly young crowd continued pouring in throughout the evening. We ordered North Indian style, and man the food was great. Back in the US, this is one thing we miss. It’s hard to understand why the cooks over there are not able to pick up the recipe from here. The food items are completely bland in taste, and in fact lately, most Indians, including me, have been giving up on Indian food. The new fan is the Gora.

Next to the restaurant, homeless still slept on the naked road in a weird position. The lifelessness of his body and posture brought pity. Right next to him, 2 dogs slept as well who looked much more comfortable, though. The coolie still charged 50 Re to carry our luggage to the platform and into the train. Manish starting walking away saying that it’s not worth more than 30 (a bargaining style I have totally forgotten now), but I asked him to do it for 50 as I thought it was cheap. May be I was wrong, but on the first day I was tempted to spend a little more as I felt the poor man could make a little extra money. (TO BE CONTD)