Trip No. 10: To Delhi Again

For the second time this month and for the fifth time this year I had to go to Delhi on work. On an average I am making one trip, every month, mostly to Delhi. It isn’t exactly a fun thing going to Delhi on work to attend meetings where sometimes you get skewered for not meeting the targets or for not submitting reports on time. For some strange reason I am unable to comprehend only I seem to get sent to Delhi every time there is a meeting to attend.

Last Monday I went to Delhi to stand in for my colleague who was actually supposed to attend the meeting. Normally I wouldn’t agree to attend important meetings on behalf of others but when I learnt that the Delhi Book Fair was on, I agreed to go. I was booked on an early morning flight which meant that I had to get up at three in the morning. It was four when I got out of the house and into a cab. The cabbie turned out to be an interesting guy about whom I will write some other time. As is usual with the flights to Delhi there was no one interesting or no celebrity on board so it was rather boring. I had with me ‘Dead and Gone’ by Andrew Vachss to read.

The daylong meeting at an institute somewhere near the Delhi Police Headquarters ended sometime around four in the afternoon. I was told that Pragathi Maidan where the Delhi Book Fair was going on was close by. It was pretty hot but I walked to the Book Fair and got a pleasant surprise finding two books that I had been looking for rather desperately. The Book Fair wasn’t so large considering Delhi the size of Delhi but there were a few stall selling used books. I browsed these stalls but couldn’t find anything interesting.

The next day I had a meeting at another office close to where I was staying with my brother. After that meeting I caught the Metro to Pragathi Maidan for a second visit. The Metro is a marvellous thing and it felt like I was in another world riding the glitzy trains. I got into the Metro at Hauz Khas, changed at Rajiv Chowk and got to Pragathi Maidan in no time. I spent an hour and returned by the same route. The return journey to Hyderabad was a bit interesting.

Almost all the trips I made to Delhi were in the domestic flights but Tuesday’s journey was on an international flight. We had to board through the International Departures terminal. I gawked at the numerous stalls selling duty free stuff. The plane turned out to be a Boeing 777 which was so large there were nine seats a row. The crew wore a different uniform and even the food, for a change, was better than the tasteless stuff they serve on the domestic flights. I reached home in time for dinner happy that I had found the books I desperately wanted to read. I’ve written about it in another post.