Posted by D.Raw El Payne 23 April 2006, 6:48pm

...just another arbit photograph by Payne. This one through the fence in our parking lot back on campus. Shall cover MDI soon too. :)

 

Signing out.

Payne



Current Music: Naam Tera blaring away from some speakers on the road.

Posted by D.Raw El Payne 18 April 2006, 11:35pm

"What is your life's ambition?" - Anonymous International Yoga Champion

I never asked him his name, I blurted out something with an awkward grin on my face as the answer. He was from Manipur and he said he'd travelled India and most of Asia teaching Yoga and that he was taking classes here in Delhi right now. He spoke like any other of those south-east asian dudes, "I from Manipur la, you?" . He was friendly and tried very hard to understand my kind of english. He shut me up with that one question. He got me looking into the distance out of the window. He got down at the next stop.

What is your life's ambition? Do you have one? Is there ONE thing I can put my finger on right now and say hey this is where I am, where I'm going and this is where I want to be? Why do I keep running into this narrow-eyed lean buggers who get me all thinking for 2 nights in a row or more? Why is it that I have to strike up conversation when the chap beside shows a glimmer of a smile? What if I could get back in touch with all of these souls whose paths intersected with mine in these 22 years? What would I say to the pregnant lady who was on the connect flight between US and Delhi and whom I'd scared by moving violently in my seat while playing F-Zero? What would I say to the uncle on the Air-India flight back in 2002 who told me that making it to an IIM was the best thing I could do, and I laughed it off saying that all these entrances are over-hyped? or the people in my school-auto whom I never spoke to? or Soumita Ghosh, the bald guy on the train to Bangalore in 2001 who was working at L&T and spoke about how he was 28 and he deserved to have his hair? or Azhar, the chap who shared his chappathi and mutton with me? Damn, I remember way too much.

Apart from all the madness in my mind, here's my official blog on being in Delhi. I've been here for 10 days now and have travelled by every mode of transport possible just missing out on the trains but thats always there for tomorrow. Autos, shared autos, rickshaws, trucks, pick-ups, cabs, shared cabs, on foot, cars, bikes, scooters and in buses. Yes, this was my first time in the buses...and what an awesome mode of transport they be. Especially the PRIVATE buses that are infamous around here, the kind of bus where the conductor is nearly falling out and is hanging on to dear life by the door and yet keeps yelling "gudgaoon! gudgaooon!" . Yes, am put up at MDI, Gurgaon which looks like an institute and not a collection of buildings on a hill which I've made my home for the past year. :) Gurgaon has NO public transport, a fact that is refuted by my roomie here - another first, a roomie. What can I do when Lucknow has taught him that rickshaws are a form of public transport? I miss Hyderabad and the autos. I miss flagging 'em down and saying "marredpally aayega?". I've actually taken pre-paid autos here with receipts and everything. But then...>

Gurgaon is fucking awesome. I get here at 11PM and am just stunned at the skyscraping buildings in the distance. The BIG malls and the innumerable, unbelievably designed architectural wonders called IT offices around. :D and most definitely the HUGE construction sites everywhere. If thats not the end, Delhi is bloody massive. The roads, the flyovers, the planning...Delhi just never ceases to amaze by its sheer scale. Capital indeed. Everything is built on a larger scale, everything looks like foreign. :) ...and this is from a guy who's been spending most of his time in the smaller parts of Delhi talking to kirana store owners.

Kirana stores, salesmen, sales registers, posters, candies, atta, biscuits, curry pastes, agarbattis, area executives, green center, delivery tempos, trucks, trolleys, hutch phones, area managers, WSPs, SCPs, Gen 42, DSRs, SPRs, WDs, DSS...and more pretty much sum up what I've been upto for 10 days now. :)

Over and out from Delhi.

Whats your life's ambition?

Payne

 



Current Mood: Lovestruck
Current Music: Alanis Morrissette - That I would be good

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