A Tale of Two Tickets

Read the following two stories. One having a SAD ending and the other one with a HAPPY one. These stories contain so many emotions that they can be made into an awesome Bollywood potboiler. Curious?? Read on...

Story - 1

Driving can be fun. Driving can be exhilarating. Driving can give you an ultimate thrill. Driving is known to bring out sides in people which they didn't know existed. Whizzing past the traffic, leaving all the cars behind, driving at speeds which makes everything else seem stationary is something that every driver yearns for. All this is great until a cop stops you by jumping in front of your car like someone's shaking you and waking you up from a beautiful dream, and saying, "dude welcome back to earth"!!!

That's exactly what happened with me a couple of weeks ago. NO i am not a traffic cop and I dont even go about jumping in front of fast cars just to get the kicks out of it. I am a law abiding citizen of this country who sticks by all the laws only to break a few of them when I have to reach office on time.

Well yeah, it was a lazy Saturday morning I was rolling on my bed when it struck me that I work 6 days a week. A frenzied 15 minutes later I was still groggy eyed but ready to leave for office. Everything seemed to be the same as it had been for every single day for past 8 months. Only thing that was different was there were so many traffic cops on the road it seemed that the whole of the police station had decided to come out for a stroll. I was driving at my usual speed (or maybe less.. 68KMPH to be precise) and there jumped a man wearing White and Blue in front of my car. Thank god my old warhorse of a car has decent brakes else it would've been the last thing that cop did. Escorting me to the side of the road he politely asked me to get off. And here is the conversation:

Cop : Gaadi side me laga lo aur license nikalo. Aap speed kar rahe they.
Me (handing him the license) : #@$%!! Whatever that means!! (Speed kar rahe they???)
Cop: Challan katega. 400 ka. Insurance dikhao..
Me: (realising that insurance papers are missing.. In a sweet voice) : Kya baat hai? Aaj itne policewale ek saath??
Cop (giving me the topic-mat-change-karo look) : 400 Rs.
Me: Handing over the money and taking the receipt and dissappearing in a flash (doing more than 68KMPH)

Phew!! There comes the first blemish on the clean driving slate of mine. One mark in 10 years of driving is still pretty good I guess.



Story - 2

It seemed it was a day to break all land speed records. A day where I could've given Micheal Schumacher a run for his money on Indian roads on a bike. The usual 60-70 minutes of office to home distance took me just 35 minutes. Why was I in such a hurry?? I was going to cheer for my Delhi IPL Team at Ferozshah Kotla.

Reaching home I didnt even have time to bask in the glory. I had another lap to cover. Changed into casuals and I was off again. I still had a good 2 hours before the match but the friend I was watching the match with, insisted on reaching the stadium one day before the match ;). Oh yes, the cop story again.

Cops have a certain liking for guys on 2 wheelers. I think they have a 2 wheeler fetish. If you have been stopped by Cops and even if you have all the papers in place, you GOT TO pay. If you are really low on luck, you may even be fined for not carrying your Ration Card, Credit Card statements, Birth Certificate and maybe even Marriage Certificate (this applies even to bachelors).

In my quest to reach the stadium on time (which was way before time actually), I jumped a red-light and voila there was a cop. And here is what went between us,

Cop: Red light jump ki hai aapne. Dangerous driving + Red light jumping ka challan katega. 1100 Rs.
Me: Arey Dilli police hoke mujhe rok rahe ho. Main Dilli ka match dekhne jaa raha hoon. Aap chahte nahi ho ki Dilli jeete?
Cop (smiling) : Haan isliye to bol raha hoon, jaldi 1100 Rs do aur jao.
Me: Dekh lo aur kuch ho sakta ho to. (9 out of 10 times bribing works)
Cop: Aap batao kitna doge?
Me: Mere paas 550 bucks hai. 500 ki match ki ticket hai, aage ka aap dekh lo.
Cop: Itna mehenga ticket!!! Ghar pe kyun nahi dekhte?
Me: Stadium mein dekhne ka mazaa hi kuch aur hai.
Cop: Lao 50 Rs lao aur jaldi jao, match start hone wala hoga.
Me (sporting a sad expression) : 500 Rs ticket ke hai and 50 Rs mere khane ke. Aapne woh le liye, ab main kya khaoonga :(
Cop: Arey aisi baat mat karo. Aur yeh lo - Hands me a 100 Rs note :D

Some Traffic Cops also have a heart and I got to experience it first hand that day. I probably am the first one to take money from a cop.

And this my dear friends was A Tale of Two Tickets...

Yeh Dilli hai mere yaar..

Dad being in defence services used to get tranferred every 2-3 years. Every transfer brought excitement to life as packing and unpacking was the best part about transfers. Yeah and there was a flip side too, having to lose all your friends. But well, that's not what I am gonna write about here.

I was 10 when I came to know that my dad was being transferred to Delhi. My happiness knew no bounds. This time there was a different kind of an excitement because we had to move to a city which had the biggest amusement park in the country, "Appu Ghar". Yes that was the only thing I was looking forward to.

Thus began our never ending train journey from Vishakhapatnam to New Delhi . I had no idea that Delhi was this far, it took 2 full days. So long it took that I was tempted to ask my mom if dad had gotten tranferred into the train...!!!

All excited about setting my foot on Sarzameen-e-Dilli, I got down from the train only to find that it was some random place called Hazrat Nizamuddin. I was like lets board the train again before it leaves... This isnt the place!!! But when I was told that this is where we were supposed to get off, I was utterly disappointed. I mean who wants to live in a place called Hazrat Nizamuddin after you have spent the last couple of weeks dreaming of living in New Delhi???

Stepping out of the station I was taken aback by the sheer scale of the city. Everything I set my eyes on seemed to be moving in its own way. Such was the hustle bustle of this city that I instantly fell in love with it. And finally it sunk in that we had moved to the capital and not to a random place.

I spent the first year of my life in Delhi living in Vasant Kunj. The now posh and upmarket locality was just a budding colony then. Rather a mere collection of discreet localities between Vasant Vihar and Mehrauli. Vasant Kunj was the place where neighbours hardly spoke to each other, let alone celebrate community Holis and Diwalis. We seemed isolated in that place. Qutub Minar and a fleeting glimpse of peacocks dancing in rain visible from my room window were the only things good about that place. School was about 10 KM from home and it seemed to be at the other end of the city. Missing the school bus was biggest fear as I used to leave home at 06:30 AM and in winter it was more of a pain. Winter was too cold and summer was the hottest I had ever experienced. The charm of Delhi was slowly fading away.

As I was growing up, the city grew around me too. Second year on, it was new place, new friends, and a new feel about the city. I slowly started to understand the dynamics of the city. Travelling in crowded public transport, shopping in markets where people fall over each other in festival season and even otherwise, having the awesome food that is available in abundance that you can die eating and still keep eating in your after-life, going through the widest and best of the roads in South Delhi, enjoying the cool breeze against your face in the evenings in summer, feeling the warm sun basking in winters, striking a conversation with absolute strangers, watching innumerable kites flying (around Independence day) which seem like colourful confetti falling from the sky, being awestruck by the sheer brilliance of the architecture (Rashtrapati Bhawan and the surrounding areas), circling the Connaught Circus by foot hundreds of times and I can go on and on about the city. All the stuff that I had hated about Delhi in the beginning , seeing them in a different light, made me fall in love with Delhi and every passing day I loved the city more.

I believe the city you grow up in has a major role to play in your development as a person. So I owe a lot to my being in Delhi for being the person I am. The city that gave me friends, the city that gave me memories to cherish, the city that I feel I am a part of, is the city that I call my Home.

Delhi turned out to be a lot more than just Appu Ghar. It became my home. It became a part of me as much as I am a part of it. I have been to and have lived in a lot of other cities but in the end I belong to where my heart belongs and that is Saddi Dilli.

Yeh Dilli hai mere yaar.. Bas Ishq Mohabbat Pyar...