Re-Living Vacations Series: Outing in Delhi and Noida

Next day I decided to visit Noida, an extension of Delhi and an IT hub. Though that's not really this post is about, its about a day out in Delhi. I started out and I wanted to use the public transport. I started with a DTC bus, the CNG buses were almost brand new around 5 years back when I left Delhi, were bit shabby. Broken window panes, not clean and a not so welcoming conductor. This was so very different from the BEST buses in Mumbai, I hardly find them filthy, window panes are always there and recently I saw a TV on the bus running ads and songs (entertainment for the commuters and ads for the corporate what a great idea). I reached my next stop thinking about this comparison and starting to think how Mumbai is far better than Delhi. I entered the Delhi Metro station and all the doubts were gone. Clean as your home, staff as welcoming as that of a Hotel, security as that of an airport. Soon I entered the Metro and its such a relief to be in air-conditioned train and best part was the attitude of people. They were so caring about the Metro, as I was leaning on the door one guy pointed it to me and asked me to stand clear of the door, There was guy standing too near the door and another lady asked him to stand behind the yellow security line, amazing change, I never saw this kind of ownership in Delhi people before. I reached Connaught Palace beaming with pride about the people of Delhi and how amazing they are. I took an auto rickshaw from there to go to Noida, the best part about the Delhi autos are that they have these digital meters but the worst part is that very few agree to switch them on. I refused to sit in any auto that was not willing to use the meter. After asking at-least 10 autos I got a guy who agreed to go by the meter. The auto took me through the clean Delhi roads having trees on either side. I got to see green wast fields once I reached Noida such a rare sight in Delhi. There was mist around the fields even at noon and the Akshardham Temple was looking beautiful in this mist covered border of Delhi.

I reached there met my friend Ranjan who will be able to tell you better about Noida than me, but for me it was a first hand experience of the good and bad Delhi people in a short span of time. People are caring and cunning almost at the same time, people are responsible and careless and they decide the behaviour as randomly as toss of a coin. City is no doubt turned into a beautiful place and infrastructure is best ever I remember. May more and more people start treating Delhi as their own and it will surely become one of the best cities in World.

Here are some pics:

The digital meters of autos in Delhi, great thing. But how many autos run on meters in Delhi???

The beautiful Akshardham Temple on a misty Delhi morning.

Green fields such a rare sight in Delhi.

My next post will be about my trip to Himachal Pradesh. I visited Dharamshala and McLeodganj. Very beautiful places.

Tarun Chandel
Life, Learning and Technology