FRIDAY DOUBLE POST : 2013 Trips: Trip No: 5- Dash (to) Capital

Last Thursday I had to visit Delhi again on some important and pressing work. I had been there barely a week ago and once again I was off to the Capital. But this time I did not go alone. The No. 1 was with me on the trip. When I was told I have to travel to Delhi the first thing that came to mind was to pick up all the books I had not picked up during the previous visit. At Janpath I had seen Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ and at Nehru Place I had seen Paul Theroux’s ‘Pillars of Hercules’ which I did not pick up because of the too high prices. I was then not in a mood to splurge around thousand rupees for just these two books and it was a heartbreaking decision to walk away empty handed. But after I got home later in the night I regretted this decision and told myself that I’d buy at least ‘Pillars of Hercules’ on the next visit.

So here I was in Delhi again for a day. There was just a short visit to an office somewhere in RK Puram which wouldn’t last more than an hour. Afterwards I thought I’d be free until the return flight in the evening. There was a car on hand and I planned to dash to Nehru Place and pick up ‘Pillars of Hercules’ at least but things did not work out that way. We were tied up until late in the afternoon so after tea we left for the airport and got there hours before check-in time. It was suggested that we use the time for work which involved writing a note on the visit. Since I had nothing else to do apart from gawking at other well dressed travelers in the airport I agreed.

So, sitting in a café somewhere in Terminal 3 and surrounded by guys drinking beer I sat and wrote out a report in long hand, all three pages of it. I managed to finish it by the time our flight was announced. That was the second task accomplished and there was one more left. The unfinished task was completing reading Jean Rhys’ ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ which I had started to read in the car on the way to the airport at Hyderabad, and continued to read in the plane to Delhi. By the time we landed in Hyderabad I was done reading the wonderful book.