I slipped back into my life in India with an involuntary ease, neither the people around seemed to sense much change(yeh to jaise gayi thi waise hi dekh rahe hai..) nor I seemed slightly out of practice when I shouted at the taxi people outside the airport early in the morning for trying to point me to multiple taxis when my token clearly said 41.
Driving around Delhi on a Saturday morning at 6a.m. has its own charm. The sleeping city is slowly waking up, but there is no rush of the techie office crowds instead there are the regulars jostling around with chai, some nimbu-mirch threads, newspapers. The people who live on the small earnings of the day do not have the luxury of weekends.. As we drove to the hotel in Paharganj where my friends had managed to find the most posh hotel, I listened to the trials and struggles of a migrant taxi driver with IIT dreams for his kids studying in Kota. I at once assumed my old identity of a techie working in an Indian company and listened to his stories with a sympathetic ear. Luckily for the taxi driver, right at the hotel entrance there was an anxious father with a suited up son who was looking for a ride to the airport since the taxi they called didn't show up on time. My taxi driver was all happy, dropped my luggage inside, forgot about his earlier pitch for some extra chai-paani and gladly drove away!
Then it was the grand reunion, college friends, old flatmates from Kolkata, my sister. 7 girls can create a lot of noise especially if they meet after such a long time. The hotel people had no clue why girls kept dropping in at regular intervals in this weird Paharganj ghetto. From Paharganj to Comesum at the old Delhi railway station, we scared all the sleepy eyed Delhi places with our loud laughs and old reminiscences.
I was wide eyed all along, until my train lurched gently for the sleepy hills. And then I slept sound and deep until the train finally came to a halt. Waiting at the train station was my tall little brother coming to pick his two elder sisters. And that is the story of the homecoming.. to be continued later..
Driving around Delhi on a Saturday morning at 6a.m. has its own charm. The sleeping city is slowly waking up, but there is no rush of the techie office crowds instead there are the regulars jostling around with chai, some nimbu-mirch threads, newspapers. The people who live on the small earnings of the day do not have the luxury of weekends.. As we drove to the hotel in Paharganj where my friends had managed to find the most posh hotel, I listened to the trials and struggles of a migrant taxi driver with IIT dreams for his kids studying in Kota. I at once assumed my old identity of a techie working in an Indian company and listened to his stories with a sympathetic ear. Luckily for the taxi driver, right at the hotel entrance there was an anxious father with a suited up son who was looking for a ride to the airport since the taxi they called didn't show up on time. My taxi driver was all happy, dropped my luggage inside, forgot about his earlier pitch for some extra chai-paani and gladly drove away!
Then it was the grand reunion, college friends, old flatmates from Kolkata, my sister. 7 girls can create a lot of noise especially if they meet after such a long time. The hotel people had no clue why girls kept dropping in at regular intervals in this weird Paharganj ghetto. From Paharganj to Comesum at the old Delhi railway station, we scared all the sleepy eyed Delhi places with our loud laughs and old reminiscences.
I was wide eyed all along, until my train lurched gently for the sleepy hills. And then I slept sound and deep until the train finally came to a halt. Waiting at the train station was my tall little brother coming to pick his two elder sisters. And that is the story of the homecoming.. to be continued later..
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