Latest sojourn in Delhi

I am just back from my one-week mid-year break in Delhi. It feels as if the routine set since 2018 is beginning to be resumed, now that (God willing) the long Covid-induced hiatus is over. If the good times continue, we shall keep coming and going several more times this year.

I wish they would restore a morning flight soon: in the current dispensation (going evening, coming back afternoon) I lose two whole working days merely travelling.

I stayed in Pupu’s latest house for the first time. Lots of space, air and sunshine: not too good for the long and terrible summer, but I am really looking forward to wintering in Delhi for the first time, with the lovely terrace to sunbathe in. God is fulfilling a lot of my little long-held wishes, albeit slowly: I presume to think that I may have earned them, and they are not the sort that harm anybody…

I was lucky enough to enjoy torrential rain twice in the space of a week which drastically lowered the temperature for a bit, and that was a small miracle, considering that all through March and April it hadn’t rained there for a single day. The violent thunderstorm on Monday the 30th evening uprooted hundreds of trees, killed two people and broke the finial off the Jama Masjid, so, considering that I simply enjoyed the chilling squall from my balcony, coffee mug in hand, I was among the very blessed ones! And it is raining now, Wednesday evening, in Durgapur, so we have been cooled down again.

Did some daily household chores, as well as worked alongside Pupu on her nascent project, so my holidays are not merely lazing days yet, though I got up very late every morning. Can’t tell you how much I enjoy being of some professional use to my daughter, and how fervently I thank the Maker every day for having allowed me to have lived this long with my faculties more or less intact. Brings back memories of the entry I made in my diary that day in August 2007 lying on my hospital bed. My appendix was about to burst, and the surgery was scheduled for that evening. I wrote ‘I must get back on my feet soon. I must go on slogging for ten more years at least’. It’s been fifteen.

Little weird experiences this time round: visited Nehru Place market, and discovered that half of India’s laptop- and mobile phone sellers and repairers are located in that one place! And while it was blazing outside today, and the air conditioners maintained a very mildly cool ambience inside the airport, there were people who were going around in full-sleeved sweaters, hoodies, and one man (I kid you not) in a fur-lined jacket that I would not wear in Delhi except at night in December or January! You should watch the traffic jams below my house every time a DTC bus tries to negotiate its way through, with vehicles parked along on both sides of the two-lane road, and every driver trying to use it like an eight-lane highway!

Now it’s happily back to the grind. Imagine, it’s the 36th year in Durgapur alone!

I write this sort of stuff because I like doing it, and because I know that some people enjoy reading it. I also know, sadly, that some people hate my guts and that is the sole reason they are revolted by anything I write. To all such people, I repeat: why don’t you merely stop visiting and thus tormenting yourself over and over again? How pathetic your sort must be!