Weekend Dreams

It was a different weekend this time. Alex was not here. You should have been here man. The plans for the weekend had started early last week. It was to go to Patiyala for Harpreet's(TCS Colleague) marriage. First Amritsar to the Golden temple followed by a visit to the Wagah border to see the evening rituals of the gate closing. But the winter had cut down our plans. Actually it was not cold, but just the fear of a sub-zero climate(which, Amritsar is famous for) had played a major role in the change of plans. So i finally didnt go for the wedding. On friday myself and Varadhan(TCS Colleague and PG-Mate), had decided to make it a Delhi weekend. So the plan was set out. It was to first go for Lunch at Old Delhi(the area near Red Fort and Jama Masjid), followed by a trip to the South-Ex market to get see what the hype was all about and as Surabhi had added to have some "eye-candy". this had to be followed by dinner at Dilli Haat. The above plan was for Saturday.So we had set out at noon, to conquer Delhi. After about a travel of about 1.5-2 hours we reached Red Fort. We went straight into Chandni Chowk. What a Market!!! It was a crazy place.

So much crowd, so many people, so many things that were sold. It was an organised chaos or u can call it an unorganised procession. I have never been to a bigger market that this ever. Walked about in this place for about 2 hours but still i guess we did not cover more than 30% of the whole of the market. And of course i had my quota of junk food, which included something called Imarati, turned out to be Jangiri(tamil), then Moong dal Halwa finally followed by Matar ka Samosa. Just when we had done with this did we see another crowded street shop. we went to that shop next and had Dahi Bhalla(Thair Vadai - Tamil). After roaming about, for a lot of time and getting tired of walking we got on the legendary rickshaw which moved not more than 5km/hr speed due to the tough driving conditions. Next stop Delhi Main Metro station. My goodness, the station was adorable. truly world class. No wonder people praise Sreedharan(the guy who managed the whole Delhi metro show) a lot. We got out Electrnic tickets for Connaught Place(Rajiv Chowk). The CP station was really confusing. the Delhi rail lines were divided as Blue, Yellow and Red lines, whose equivalent would be the central, western and the Harbour lines of mumbai or the MRTS and Beach-Tambaram line of Chennai. The architecture was amazing, the station had one train travelling over the other. In this case i truly believe a picture would be worth a thousand words, cos am not able to explain it properly. Check out few of the fotos that am attaching.

Next from CP we took a bus to South Extension, which is better known as South-ex market. there was nothing much there, it was just like some mall infested metropolitan zone which housed all global brands and of course the promised 'eye-candy'. Spent hardly about half an hour there and then we reached Dilli Haat. The place has been set-up by the delhi tourism dept. to encourage tourism and culture(obviously). It houses many eating joints representing different states. But the event for the day was the Kashmiri festival. there were lots of stalls which sold expensive paintings which i guess were worth the money(only if i had them). And of course the woolens, shawls and junk jewellery were integral part of the whole event. then something unexpected had happened. It was as though we had been rewarded with a free treat for implmenting our plan without any deviation or change. There was a fashion show that was taking place. It had designs from Kashmir, Nagaland, assam and Rajasthan. The Rajasthan costumes were designed by a group of students from some Instt.(sorry forgot the name, it started with "J"). Vibrant colours were the eye-catchers. Out of 16 models (8 male + 8 girls) about 4-5 were good. Others were just about OK. So after the satisfying fashion show, it was time for some good dinner. We went to this stall called Momo-Mia, which was staffed by the Arunachal Pradesh board of Tourism. Taking Surabhi's advice i had Momos and Fruit Beer. I had Friend Chicken Momos(didnt enjoy it much), fruit beer was good though. Then we ordered for Chicken Manchow soup. It was unlike any Manchow soup, i had ever seen, it had egg-white floating on the shoup and unlike the expected dark brown colour this was pretty much plain with egg-white floating on the surface. The taste didnt deceive our expectations, it was as bad as it looked. So the obvious thing to do was to leave it the way it is and give some peace to our stomach. Rushed back from there to Gurgaon, in the usual call-centre cab.
The sunday Sun had risen and i made sure i called up my driving-trainer to cancel the class for the day cos i needed to SLEEP. Slept till 10.00 in the morning after the usual daily tasks we carried on with our plan of going to the 8th Auto Expo at Pragati Maidan. We entered after paying for an over-prices ticket of 150 bucks. The money didnt seem to deter the crowd. It was really crowded, we checked out the car and bike designs from Tata, Yamaha, Ford, Honda, Ford, few german companies, Dilip Chhabria's stall, and kept gazing. The best part were the models who accompanied the automobiles. hmmm... They were good, most of them were posing for the public to take pictures(strange!!!, guess that is what they get paid for). They were few Rock shows, dance events and much more activity going on all around. Finally we moved on to a outdoor stage. Guess, what i gotta see there.... Yet another fashion show!!! And surprisingly all the good looking models from the previous day show were there. The dress collection was amazing, supposedly inspired by different brands of Ford. As the clock ticked 8.00, the authorities had to show that time was up, so they just switched off the power after which, the models had to leave their show half way thru. So after that, back to pavilion and had a sound sleep. Of course that was after i resumed the movie i was seeing - Parineeta.
And thats the way the cookie crumbles.... again!!