Cut!
Whenever I want to write something, it always happens to me that I build a structure in my mind and till it transcends to a document, there will be least time and sometime I just end up writing parts of bits of what I intended to write.
Here is one such bit!
I was traveling to Delhi for the first time and with Sir (Prof NHR). I always like to spend time with him. I had never gone beyond Northern Andhra Pradesh (now may be Telangana?!) Although it’s a different thing that I had been to northern parts of Northern hemisphere a couple of times! It was never as emotional for me as to visit places in India. One might say it’s an archaic feeling in the contemporary thinking to get more attached to places close to our origin, I can definitely say in every heart at least in some corner everybody will agree to this. Janani janma bhoomishcha swargaadapi gariyasi. And further being born in the oldest and the most flourished civilizations [I feel and am sure most will agree] it’s an intense feeling.
It was a two hour flight. I was sitting between Sir and another senior colleague. So I was at my best decency! Had to work on the presentation that I finished quickly. Had a look at the magazines and here comes my favourite rice with rajma (a representation of South and North India I would say!). Had tea and I was pretty relaxed. Scanned through few TV channels and finally found the live camera of the flight more interesting. In any case I was, for the first time flying across India.
It’s a fantastic experience to see something similar to a live Google earth! The lifelines - rivers, the hilly ranges, the villages and the forests. I could see croplands with a central settlement as almost a common phenomenon. And most importantly there were no boundaries! I could see the ecosystems as they are linked – without boundaries. It was like scanning the toposheets minus boundaries! Most surprising was the central Indian range of forests. I was quite surprised and happy to learn that it is still intact [at least it looked so from the top!]
I was tired. Before I could doze the flight was about to land. Here I am in Delhi airport.
Another surprise was waiting for me, in fact two!
One of my friends came to receive me at the airport! Again a first time! I am a little less talker rather a wired person to talk with! So before we could have a few words, we were hunting for the correct taxi. Imagine a filmy situation now. There was a verbal battle between taxi walas for who should take the customer first! In a filmy style my friend said “Yeh hai dilli”. As if this was not enough, I was a little numb. I don’t know the reason. May be because I was tired. I could sense the dense traffic and the dusty atmosphere. My friend said, don’t you find Delhi green? I haven’t seen Delhi enough but could feel it’s very dusty and dull than what I expected. May be because its winter and there was a recent smog there.
We reached the place where our accommodation was arranged and walked towards the gtz office which was close by. We had to prepare for the next day workshop. I couldn’t sense, but the day was passing. The minor things like the presentation and the summary report was ready and Sir was kind enough to set me free as he had a conference call to attend which might take time. Did a little walk around in Sarojini nagar market. I don’t know how significant this place is but the main point was it was nearby.
I could now feel the dusk falling with its chilling cold.
Returned back to the guesthouse and relaxed for a while. The building was colder than outside. Thanks to my UK experience, the first thing I did was to locate the room heater and set it on.
Started scanning the TV channels.
Now you call it, exaggeration, filmy, fiction or whatever. It was an unbelievable shock for me.
A report on a news channel just informed me that today exactly 25 year back, the Bhopal tragedy happened. During the flight, the time I spent looking through the live camera was almost across BhopoI . a live map helped me recognize places. I was busy before that and after that I almost slept. Now the question as to why I was looking at the live camera when I was flying across Bhopal is something I can never answer.
