The Westside Story – XIX – Day 16

15 days ago, we woke up in Bangalore. 15 days after that we woke up in a different city almost everyday!! 15 days later we woke up in Dilli. Our first day in Delhi, we were late for breakfast!! We kept Danish’s mom waiting since 0800 hrs!! Sorry aunty…

We headed out around 1000 hrs to Red Fort. We drove from Gurgaon to Delhi and picked up Vidushi. We then caught the metro and were set to leave. But we got diverted by a Mc Donalds on the way and stopped for fries and a softy. We had to have our official trip food even in Delhi :D

Red Fort is massive on the inside! I’ve always seen it from outside and always thought it was just a long rectangle, in reality, it’s really huge!
Red fort was built by Shah Jahan. And it’s got quite a few Mahal’s inside the fort. There is a museum as well.

The ticketing is quite weird here. At the entrance, you will have to pay Rs. 5 for entry and Rs. 10 for the Museum. The guard at the main gate will tear all the tickets together. Remember not to throw them away because the guard at the museum will check the other half of the torn museum tickets!!! We almost had to leave without visiting the museum because the half tickets got lost in Danish’s deep pockets full of you-know-what = JUNK!!!! ;D

Anyway, after Red Fort we headed to the heart of Chandini Chowk (Dilli 6) to a Paranthe walli gulli for the yummiest paranthas!! They were in at least 25 various flavours for around Rs 25 each. Probably 2 should fill a person. It was good fun since the place is tiny, if someone stretches too much he might punch a guy 2 tables away in the face, and the service is literally on the go! Your order is taken by a boy who is walking from one table to another and just happens to look at you! He’ll jerk his head up as a form of questioning you, and you just have to keep your order ready else wait for the next guy to give you time! :D

Danish had left by the end of the meal to pick Saher Punjab and drop her to Gurgaon, so the 4 of us took a cycle rickshaw and headed to Jama Masjid!! The ride through Chandini Chowk was amusing! J I felt like a tourist looking at the bustling city with a road as narrow as one lane used for oncoming traffic as well, with the electric wires hanging so low, I’d have been able to do a Mowgli on one of them had I just stuck my hand up!

Our luck this time ran out and we were at the Masjid just as the time for Namaz had started! We weren’t allowed in, so we decided to head to Janpath to shop for a bit.

We caught another rickshaw to the metro and hurried away to shop! After an hour or so, we met Danish at India Gate and had Mother Dairy chocolate chip ice-creams and went home!

I met some of my colleagues, who’re more of friends and less of colleagues, for an amazing Thai dinner and then went clubbing to a place called Buzz. Here is when I saw the real difference between Bangalore and Delhi.

Both cities have a very different outlook and if they’d merge it’d be like Shangri-La. More about it later!