Life's a crazy mess!

A long time away from blogging and I'm finally back! yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Guess the rains inspired me to finally blog.

The heat in Delhi was just unbearable and it resulted in constant loss of liquids in my body and a certain tingling feeling on the keyboard 'coz of all the sweat accumulating there (yes yes I can certainly be gross and I shall avoid getting into further details). A sweltering few days since the beginning for June...which had me doing quite a bit of jogging and jumping in my room (oh now...u know me, i can't be health conscious can I?) thanks to the hot floor :S. But yes...it did some good too, many of my long forgotten friends started messaging me and mailing me to see if I was still alive and hadn't melted yet :D

Now that I'm done with my ramblings, let's get down to business as I sip my Gatorade into the night. If Delhi's got me addicted to something, it's Gatorade! I could go on about it but I'm no cricketer to endorse products.

A few months back I had started using a certain cycle rickshaw regularly from the metro station to my office near New Delhi Railway Station. It wasn't me being lazy to walk, it was just that there was this one guy who always offered to take me there and was pretty good at convincing me to sit in his rickshaw. Let's just start from the beginning then....it was 9:35p...I was late (yes you all may have noticed the accidental p I placed there...let me correct that...9:35am :D) and one of our subcons had arrived at site and was calling me up and asking me where I was as the door was locked (I double as a security guard...or the 'Keymaker' if you want it to sound more matrix like). I had to get to the site and couldn't afford to take my routine 15 minute morning walk. A bunch of rickshaws stood before me and for once, the dim bulb in the brain shone bright!

Me: Bhaiya, I need to go to Zakir Hussain College. How much will you charge?
R1 : 15Rs
Me: Are you crazy????? I'll pay 5Rs.
R1 : Sorry I won't go

(moves to the next rickshaw and attempts the same dialogue again)

R2 : 10Rs sir
Me: 5Rs!
R2 : Sir pay 8Rs I'll take you there
Me (thinking) : hmmm....should I just go or waste another 10 minutes haggling?
Me: sigh...okay (yes, we indians love to haggle and hate losing in any of the Bargain Battles)

And that's the story of how I first got into that rickshaw. In the days that followed, he'd get ready with his cycle rickshaw when I got out of the metro station and ask me to get in. His rates went down from the initial 8Rs to 5Rs for the ride. Often I'd pay an advace for two or three days and he wouldn't ask for more (yes yes I did tip once in two weeks).

One morning as I got into the rickshaw, I noticed the guy looked pretty worried. Curiosity got the best of me and...

Me: Hey, you look upset...something wrong?
RW (Rickshaw walla...I just realised I forgot to ask him his name!): Yes sir, last night someone stole all my money, I was sleeping on that corner of the road and they took all the money I had made that day.
Me: Oh my God! That's bad!
RW: Yes sir, I had bought a new shirt for my brother and one for myself and kept it in a bag. In the evening I had downed a few and went off to sleep there and the next morning I see that someone had taken my plastic bag....the b@#%@!#s!
Me (thinking): New clothes...bag....alcohol...loss of senses...sleep on road...robbed....yep kinda makes sense
Me: That's real bad (yep...I was totally monotonous there and couldn't think of anything else to say...eventually the light bulb helped)...wrong time to ask you this but how much do you make a day?
RW: Sir, generally I make around 400-500Rs a day. After food and alcohol, I manage to save around 300Rs a day.

Me (thinking again): hmmm...500X25 (assuming he's working everyday) comes to around 1250...oh boy life must be tough for him....uhm...wait....500X25?? WTF!!! That's 12,500Rs without taxes!!!! I got paid that much in my first year in the company!!!!!!

Me: That's quite a sum, why do you keep all the money in your hand always? Why don't you get a savings account in one of the banks nearby and get an ATM card. You can put in money every evening after you finish work. You'll be able to save a lot more and send money to your family in the village too.
RW: Sir I already have an account, but it's on the other side of town. I've got 3lacs there which one of my relatives had given me. I'm saving that to start a business of my own in a few months. I'm hoping to save some from the work I'm doing now.
Me: Yeah and you can make it much better if you start saving your money and not letting others rob you
RW: Yes sir....sir...do you think they'll give me an account in one of those banks?
Me: Why not?? There are many banks nearby. State Bank of India will open one for you with just the savings you make everyday. And you can deposit money at any time of the day. Even at night.
RW: Really sir? I was thinking of putting it in my account there but it's too far and I can't go everyday. I think I shall do something tomorrow or so...Thank you sir...Sir if you don't mind, could you give me an advance for tomorrow, I haven't had breakfast.

Paid him 15Rs that day...yes a measly sum but it meant a lot to him. It's funny how we underestimate many ppl around us. These guys move in from neighboring states into Delhi and slog their days riding contraptions that carry 3-4 ppl in the summers of Delhi. Often having to bargain their fare for an extra Re or two.

Their dreams may be modest, but it's nice to know that this city....the Lazy Metro...still has it's dreamers...the ones who still dream of a future where they are sitting behind a store making money out of hard work than sleeping away in a corner office. Haven't seen the guy for almost 3 weeks now...I'm hoping he got his savings right and managed to get that store he was dreaming and telling me of.....the very Best of Luck to him :)

It's summer already and Delhi is back on it's infamous heat streaks....a whopping 40 degrees for a while and lingering at 36+ in Celsius all day is anything but pretty...and to top it off, the Air Con at work was turned off....some intelligent soul decided that the Air Con deserved a holiday and thought of giving it one this Saturday. Uhm no...I'm not talking abt the situation at my company, but it's well....at a site where i'm working....the details, I shall refrain from revealing...let's just say an earlier cribbing session has come back to haunt me in the form of a project :( (Hey don't get me wrong, work's awesome!)

Another week ends and this time around instead of writing down my weekly report to my Technical Manager I thought I'd give my blog a shot...sigh and I'm back to having nothing to write. A long week can do things to you....but a long and eventful one at that. A friend flew in halfway around the world to meet me for one ;) Alright so she didn't fly down halfway around the world 'just' to meet me, there were other important things but hehe....let's just use the more appealing reason :D A Dilli Darshan that lasted almost 10hrs, loads of shopping and a goodbye at the airport sums up my thursday....did I forget to mention the amazing food? Sigh....I still drool thinking of the amazing stuff we had all thro' the day! Observe as I stuff in a 50Rs Momo :



Aaaaaah...now that we're done with the drooling...how many of you have got a compliment from a person who has later made you feel extremely uncomfortable with a racist statement? It was just another day at work, a site that is being set up by us Engineers and one of the officials from the client started up a conversation with me, let's just call him Mr K

This conversation has been translated from a combination of English and Hindi to English to assist the linguistically challenged and to avoid embarrassing myself 'coz of my extremely funny version of the National Language

Mr K: Hey Shanim, how's the progress on the site?
Me: Going on great sir. We're moving quite quickly and have managed to make and beat most of our targets. (yes yes I'm trying to make it sound 'professional' ;) )
Mr K: Do you know something, your Hindi is real good for a south indian

Blushes stammers and speaks gibberish and Mr. K regrets having uttered those few sentences mentioned above

Me: No sir, I'm far from perfect. I still make quite a few blunders as I speak. (sigh...modest ain't I?)
Mr K: Oh no, it is quite good. Since you primarily use other languages and use Hindi only to converse with us, I feel it is good. We find it very difficult to speak English, which we use only in rare situations, and you are quite fine with both English and Hindi. Even your accent sounds quite good and not like a southie.
Me: Oh!...Thank you :)

An awkward silence follows....

Mr K: So Shanim, what does your name mean?
Me (thinking): Sigh...hate this question!
Me: It doesn't really have a meaning. My dad had made it up and I find that a good enough reason to love it.
Mr K: That's real nice. So what is your full name?
Me: It's Shanim Sainul, sir.
Mr K: Oh, so you're christian are you?
Me (thinking): sigh....this would be the 2324112nd person assuming I'm X'ian...how do I tell the guy I'm agnostic?....uhm...let's leave it as Muslim
Me: No no sir, I'm Muslim

A silence follows, he looks uneasy and suddenly gets defensive

Mr K: Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be asking you this. Hope you don't mind.
Me (thinking): WTF???
Me: No sir, why should it be a problem :) It's okay.

We move in different directions and he resumes his silent chantings from the Bhagvath Gita as I continue to watch my Malaysian friend talk to the sub-contractors in a language that baffles me, it's a mixture of english and a dramatic performance worthy of an award. (Uhm...yeah I do help out eventually....I mean I have to stop laughing to do so, right?)

A normal conversation isn't it? or is it? Aren't we all just plain racists? We walk around talking about people from south india as madrasis or southies and when we're down south in Bangalore, we abuse the 'northies' who have absolutely no care for the city and it's beauty. We call people Mallus, Gultes, Pandis, Chinkies, Surds....the list just goes on. True we never realize it. We probably have the worst case of racist behavior and it continues to be a part of us being Indian. I've often heard people talk about their caste and how it is not acceptable to marry someone from a different caste, or of how another person was of a lower caste and their 'kind' used to deliver milk in villages. Now why did all this spark a thought in my otherwise vacuum head?

It's 10:30pm. I walk home after a tiring day at work and a tough search for some snacks for the long night (fine....I choose to make the nights long by sleeping at 2am) and on my way to the gate I overheard a very weird conversation. A man, quite tall and bulky was talking to a cycle rickshaw guy. The only thing I heard (which was quite loud mind you) was "Tum Hindu ho ke Musalmaan??" (Translated as "Are you Hindu or Muslim??"). I was distracted by a friend of mine at this point and didn't see what happened next but.......does this question really matter???? I often get jealous of the Chinese....most of them are free-thinkers and are not limited in their sights and perspective to just religion or castes for that matter. A Chinese friend of mine was fascinated when we talked about religion. She had never heard of Buddhism and Islam before and she looked at us like a 5-yr old at a candy store.

We remain in our closed boxes, shying away from interacting with people from 'other' backgrounds. After all, they are different and they can be threatening to us. Why the $!#@# are we still living in a archaic society??? Isn't it time we moved on and changed our perspective?

A religion is merely our guide to be good to the world, it's there to give us peace of mind and more often than not, we're born into it (atleast in India). Is this a reason to fight on or profile?? BEATS ME!!

"Hey...don't ever let somebody tell you 'You can't do something'....not even me alright?

You got a dream, you gotta protect it...people can't do something themselves, they tell you 'You can't do it'....you want something? Go get it!...Period!!" --Chris Gardner in 'The Pursuit of Happyness'

A couple of words that struck my heart like a sword and struck it good. I've no better word to say about this movie than "Amazing!!". Adding one more quote from the movie to end this tiny post.

"And it was at that time that I thought about Thomas Jefferson writing that Declaration of Independence. Him saying that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I thought about how he knew to put the 'pursuit' in there, like no one can actually have happiness. We can only pursue it."

Maybe it's just all around us....maybe it's just waiting for us to call on it...maybe we've forgotten to smile and welcome happiness into our lives....maybe...just maybe.....

An interesting conversation sparked up the other day while we were traveling to a site in Delhi. My manager and another of his colleagues were with me in a tiny cab which apparently had more accidents than engine parts. We were talking about some incidents that had occurred recently in the country and eventually ended up having a discussion on drugs.

It is known to most students in the country that drugs are very much in business and available cheap. Local panwallahs near colleges are often the easiest links to get 100gms of Weed for a amounts that can be considered pretty much like pocket change. And this is surprising?? Think again!!

We often hear from our conservative parents that such things are true only in places like "Bangalore", "Bombay" etc....me being from Kerala, they continue to vouch for the state and tell me that the state is a real nice place and doesn't have any influence of sorts. Reality, however, contradicts! It may be true that my college didn't have much of an influence to this and if it did, I was unaware of the same, but move out of the place and into most other cities and tourist hubs and you're bound to find a stoned foreigner or student walking around. The pretext of coming into the country for "religious" and "spiritual" peace is more or less a couple of words that just mean nothing if you were to look at it carefully. The reason why India is known to be mystical and magical is probably because half the tourists who come in here remain 'high' through their stay here and....well it's kinda obvious what happens then right?

So what exactly am I talking about here? An external link may help : High in the mountains...

Video Reports of the same : Video

A coincidence? Maybe not....with things happening around the country (and the world for that matter) it was bound to come out sooner or later. Kudos to the reported and CNN-IBN for covering such a controversial topic! And yep, the 3.9 million tourist inflow (as of 2005) may just surge higher after this report...

Last night I was unable to get a wink of sleep and spent 2 hours walking around my tiny room wondering what to do. Spent sometime online (yep nothing new) and then after a couple of blog reading and commenting I moved on to gaming and then a book and finally the newspaper. I've been keeping off the paper in Delhi lately since it's the Indian Express and the paper hasn't really caught my attention much owing to it's very brief content.....until last night ie.

The Front Page of Saturday's Newspaper had a disturbing tale to tell us and it shocked me.

Children all over the country seem to be going missing and not many seem to care, or atleast don't seem to notice. We often find kids walking around the roads and traffic signals begging for alms, we given them a cold shoulder and just walk by. How often do we stop to think twice or maybe ask them where they're from? I'm sure we being Indians love to know what's happening in our neighbour's house or maybe Amitabh Bachan's family but little do we care about the children walking around on the streets with tattered clothes abused psychologically, physically and often sexually. And where do they come from? Probably homes like ours or maybe our neighbours' (where we so often poke our noses into).

The recent Nithari case was a wake up call. And yet we fail to understand that this is just one of a million other similar occurrences around the country. A whopping 1,047 children go missing in Kerala alone, as per the article. This from a state that boasts to have one of the best Police forces in the country. I shudder to think what the numbers are in other states or of the many that go unreported! A child going out for a haircut, another to play cricket or another out to meet a friend....all missing, and we aren't just talking of young children but some as old as 16yrs.

Fear sets in one's mind just picturing this and I wonder...."How safe are our kids??"

Gurugiri v/s Gandhigiri

A couple of months back I met up with a senior of mine online after a reeeeal long time. It's almost 8 years since I last met him, and from his pics...he hasn't changed much. It was absolutely great catching up. We were in the same house back in school (Spring House ROCKS) and swam for the swim team as well. He had told me then that he plays for a band and it wasn't surprising since he was part of the Band back then and played real good!


Now for the catch....when he said band, I thought it was something like the bands we had in school or like most here in Indian colleges...play popular tunes and modify some a bit and mark them as your own creation....sigh...guess again! Wait...why guess?? Check them out for yourself. The band is AudioDetour and my pal's name is Agul. He plays bass guitar in the band and they sound awesome! You can listen to their tunes at their site. Do check it out, it'll be worth it...trust me!


Damn my pals are awesome...wonder what happened to me! :) oh yeah I remember...we'll leave that for a later discussion...



A Little about them:

"About AudioDetour

AudioDetour is a four member band that strives to create a new musical experience that blends genres from two different corners of the world. The band has been and will continue to experiment with different sounds and feels of music that complement traditional Indian poetry.

The members of AudioDetour are:

Sai - Lead Male Vocals/keyboards/arrangement/mixing
Gary - Rhythm/Lead guitar
Agul - Bass/Rhythm/Lead guitar
Silpa - Lead Female Vocals

AudioDetour has been together for over two years and it all began when Sai took a leap into the world of composing. Having dabbled in it briefly, he turned his dream into reality by acquiring the precious music equipment that is the life of AudioDetour's studio today. Gary, a passionate learner of his instrument, was looking for avenues to explore further. Agul was active in the local circuit and quickly made name for himself as a dynamic bass and guitar player. A walk into Sai’s studio is all it took for these two guitarists to get serious about their passion. The three ended up working on their first song. Silpa was a popular performer of popular Bollywood numbers and Ghazals at local events. After being introduced to the band through a common friend, Silpa decided to lend her voice to AudioDetour.

Alongside composing and recording music, live performances have become a major part of AudioDetour’s journey. These performances have resulted in massive support from Indians and Americans in and around the United States. AudioDetour has also been featured on a couple of radio shows and podcasts including a popular show on BBC Radio.

The songs featured here are drawn from AudioDetour's debut album, "Transitions, Reflections and 9 kilos of Aachaar". The album contains 9 songs, which try to capture a gamut of emotions, from fun to romantic to pensive. Genre is not a boundary for this album, for which influences are drawn from carnatic, hindustani, rock, blues, and many more."

A serious case of blogger's block has been looming around me and a couple of my blogging buddies. We constantly visit each other's blogs and notice that the other hasn't blogged and procrastinate blogging on our own. Today, I'm breaking this habit and finally penning down my thoughts.

I had a wonderful New Year's Eve, the jobless (uhm...let me rephrase that, lifeless) person that I was, I went to work on New Year's eve and spend the turn of the year working on keeping two of our switches up. Uhm...to the non-technical audience, I was just making sure you guys could call your loved ones and say "Hey!! Happy New YEAR!!!" :) yep...lame but hey, I wasn't the only one there :) hehe..so there are more of us who don't really have a life. A heavy fog had hit the city then and my cab driver had an awesome time stopping every few seconds to step out and ensure that we were still on the road....and occasionally to walk around and check where we were :) After a gruelling two hours of searching for streetlights, sign boards, and insanely blind bikers speeding at 120 in a fog of visibility 50m, he finally got me home. A short nap later, I learn that most of my friends got wasted the previous night hours before the turn of the year. Hehe...so I don't have a life, the rest had way too much of it to stay up to enjoy the countdown...so hey...guess it evened out :)

Well, speaking of night activities....guess I'm getting used to the fact that I do dumb things, I fail to notice them these days. The other day I had a night activity and was to reach an Exchange at Tis Hazari at 9:45pm. Since there was this huge confusion about cabs, I finally didn't get one and was asked to get to the exchange on my own. The miser that I am, I decided to use the Metro. Left home at 8:30p and walked towards the metro station at Dwaraka Sec 10 (This is the second last station on the westward direction of the Blue Line). My plan, arrive at CP in 45 minutes, catch my connection to Kashmere Gate through the Yellow line, get the last train out of Kashmere Gate on the Red Line to Tis Hazari just in time to get there by 9:45 or 10p. Oh well, with Delhi's well known punctuality, being 15 minutes late would actually be too early!

Sigh...little was I to know that the world was conspiring against me already. I reached the station around 8:50p and well guess what happens, no train....5 minutes pass.....10....12....and finally a train pops up...yep, I had forgotten that the frequency at this station was 12 minutes and I had just missed the previous train.

A whole 40 minutes later I get a call from one of my colleagues asking me where I was and that they were leaving Tis Hazari to the site as we were getting late. I'm sure all of you have been in situations like this when your mind just fails to perform a task that it has spent over 23 years perfecting....thinking! I jumped out of the train at the next station and jumped into a rickshaw and headed to the site....uhm...now for the punch line...my dearest readers, I didn't know where the site was :) I'm almost always sleeping just before I get to this site at a place called Shaktinagar. It's in a place I haven't ventured into during the day and hence I was pretty sure I'd get lost. The rickshaw finally entered Shaktinagar Circle (it's also the market there...read my prev post to understand what they mean by "markets" here)...and yes you guessed it, I was lost...we asked a couple of people around if they knew where I wanted to go...yep sounds demented, but we tried giving it a shot anyways...finally we were informed that we were on the wrong side of Shaktinagar, and we would have to travel another 5-10kms to the right place. Time's ticking away and my colleague rung up when I hadn't reached. Thats when my dearest brain decided to work for the first time that night, and I gave my phone to the rick driver and he gave him directions. Cold winds had me numb but hey I was finally there after a whopping 20 minutes!

Scheduled Time of Departure - 8:15p
Actual Time of Departure - 8:30p
Expected Time of Arrival - 9:55p
ACtual Time of Arrival - 11:00p (Oh yes...even with Delhi's norms for punctuality, I was LATE)

Sigh...guess some things never change!

Interesting images from imagechef

It was just another day in the office when I got a call from my Technical manager asking me to prepare for an interview in a couple of hours by our client. Although surprised, I felt it was best doing something about it rather than brooding away. The afternoon on the same day, I finally had the interview and well...I wasn't impressed by myself.

The next day, my TM calls me into his office with a fierce look on his face. The client had returned with their feedback and it must have been bad....with a disappointed look on his face he showed me his laptop with the mail open...it read "We would like to hire Shanim Sainul for the project at Delhi"....WTF?? a big laughter by my TM later reality
struck..."Delhi" seemed to be brightly shining on my face like a billboard in Las Vegas....Oh Boy!!!

A long wait later, I'm finally here in the capital! My first day was uneventful, we spent 2 hours going around different sectors of Gurgaon in search of my company's office there. Apparently we had taken the wrong road to Gurgaon and ended up taking the wrong turns and were in a completely different locality. Finally at 3pm in the afternoon after a whopping 2.5hrs I was finally in the office. After the initial introductions and the reinstallation of my laptop, I was heading back home. That's when I realise how different things are in this city. I had to cross over the border and hence no through taxis to the place I was put up at, Dwaraka. My manager in Gurgaon dropped me off near the border, and I decided to walk till the border and look around for a Delhi auto. Alright so I did cross the border, but not a single auto in sight...it was as if they were alerted well in advance of my arrival and decided to evade me at all costs! A lone cycle rickshaw helped me out then...uhm...yeah I was hell guilty riding on one but well he insisted and dropped me off at the nearest junction asking me for just 2Rs!!! jeez...Guilt won over and I paid him 10 bucks....which again seemed too little for dragging over 80kgs of weight for over a km. The rickshaw charged me 60 bucks and I was finally at my pal's place around 10 in the night.

The next day was quite uneventful, besides the morning ride to my client's office. I went by three modes of transport spending over a hundred bucks to finally find the place, only to know later that I was to meet my reporting manager the next day. hmmmmm...oh well it was fun and I ain't complaining :) Under my better judgment I decided on going back home that evening by the company cab....was I relieved to reach home at 6:30! The next day was much more interesting, I was finally going into Delhi and not sticking to the routine Gurgoan journeys. My reporting manager had asked me to meet him in the GK-II (Greater Kailas) office in the afternoon. Had a relaxed morning and slowly moved out of the house and took a rick to GK-II....uhm...if u guys are wondering why I'm constantly on ricks and not on buses like it was when I had entered Bangalore...well...times change and company pays ;) (atleast I'm hoping)...and moreover, there are practically zero buses from Dwaraka to most parts of the city...hence not worth waiting for one.

It was an hour long journey and I was finally in one of the most posh areas in the city. When I got the address, I was told that the place was near the M-Block market....for a moment I pictured a vegetable market with bullock carts all around and hawkers screaming out for attention....sigh...yep I was wrong. The M-Block market is anything but that...the first shop I saw CCD, followed by Barrista, and a couple of other coffee pubs..I later learnt that this is the girl hangout...uhm...youth hangout in Delhi and has some of the best pubs....pubs like Diva and rpm...yep it's a hep part of town and trust me...it's awesome....as for the babes...well all of you who've seen the forward about India Pakistan Friendship (the huge crowd of girls at a concert to be more specific) apparently haven't been to delhi!!!! The below average looking girls here are as pretty as the above average looking girls back in Bangalore....and trust me...the guys who've been to Bangalore can surely get what I mean!

The weekend was quite ok, I couldn't go out much as my pal who was to give me company had work over the weekend and we just had the morning to go places. I was looking for a place to stay so it was more of house hunting than anything else. Took a ride on "Delhi ke Shaan"...no it's not my imposter...it's the Delhi Metro!!! For those who have been to London, well it's pretty much like the Tube...isn't that enough said? The Metro is just too good, and it surely makes you feel you've been teleported to some developed nation as you enter any of its stations. The only thing that gives it away is the hindi written along with english everywhere. Travel around the city is a breeze with the Metro and I'm just waiting for the time it covers the city as a whole....the second phase of the metro is expected to complete by the end of '07. Just dropped into Karol Bagh...saw a couple of houses....uhm...rather an excuse of a structure which was being rented out for over 4k and then moved back to Dwaraka where things seemed more sensible. The story about my house hunting would be a chapter on its own so I shall refrain from going into details.

Monday was an awesome day. I had woken up fully charged up and entered the bathroom to take a bath. The "courageous" person that I was, I decided to take a bath in cold water. Filled the bucket and the first mug sent shivers all over my body....with the second...I was numb! It kinda helped actually, didn't feel the rest of the mugs of water after that...so it was kewl...literally!!! The papers finally answered my puzzling mind...it had snowed in the north and has brought the mercury down in a big way...temperatures were now lingering around 9 degrees Celsius and was expected to slide further down....sigh...sweaters and two T-shirts followed. Yep the temp had come down in a big way and I could feel it all through my journey to GK-II that morning. A small chat with my colleagues and a meeting with my managers in Bangalore later I headed to Tis Hazari, a site where I would be working to check out a few things. The first thing I did notice there was monkeys! Oh boy...yes...just outside the Metro after a 2 minute walk, the place was filled with monkeys jumping around trees! hmmm...a transition from the most modern, to the India we read in most American books. It was 6 by the time I got out of there. Took the metro to Rajiv Chowk and waited for a pal at the station there and jumped out to see CP...ie. Connaught Place. The place where Ghandhiji's assassin made plans of murder. An awesome place is the smallest compliment you can give. The circular road surrounded by both International and Indian brands can surely bring out the shopper in you...and for us misers, the Palika Bazaar opens its arms out welcoming you into its stores. The place is just beautiful!!!! And as my manager said....greenery abundant ;)

Things have just begun, I'm loving it already...keep watching this space for more...for now...ciao!!