Dhool wali Delhi

A few days back i was travelling to Delhi in the hot of summers. After few hours travel from my home, i was entering Delhi and my eyes were out of window looking at multi-storey buildings along the road. My eyes got stuck to a building shining like a mall and it was the metro station in Anand vihar and suddenly bus was braked and i got ...oh.. this is Delhi, i was in Anand vihar , starting of Delhi at the U P boarder.
Actually i had to go to Nangloi, so i caught bus no-236 for Nangloi. I was travelling in Delhi by this old and rough looking bus. It took 3 hours from Anad vihar to Nangloi via sheelampur, kashmiri gate, sahadara..
Although literally i was travelling in the capital of india but in real sense i felt that i was travelling through such a place which was full of dust and pollution. Pollution is obviously natural in a metro city but dust was because of construction flyovers, roads and metro bridges. I smiled ..oh..India is developing! There were boards/barricades along the road showing that construction is being done for common wealth games. so entire route was dusty. I said to myself –“dhool wali delhi” in the appreciation of the capital. Ultimately after a fatigue journey of 3 hrs i reached to my destination.
My eyes were continuously looking out of the bus window throughout my travel because it was the matter of capital of India. And that’s why i was curiously looking at the buildings, shops, flyovers that came in my route. But surprisingly i was disappointed and was asking from myself “ am i really in Delhi ?”. ok! it can be Delhi but it can’t be capital of India. Then i realized where we stand at international level. Obviously at sea level.
I travelled nearly 100 km along Delhi-Bareilly highway. The highway is full of dust because flyovers and roads are being constructed. I murmured –india is developing. I also had travelled once four years back on the same route. Then also construction was running keeping common wealth games in the mind. I encountered seven flyovers in this 100 km journey on this highway. I noticed that only one flyover was done and rest were under construction in spite of CWG being on head. In a span of time of 4 years it could not be completed. I think there are two reasons for this- first our genetic habit that we will never be on time and second it is in U P . Then my conscious remembered the story of tortoise and hare in which tortoise always wins. But in this case i felt that tortoise is tired and it don’t want to have a further race because speed of construction and development was obviously in front of my eyes. And anyone can conclude how lazy we are! So i wanted to cry ‘where does India stand?’. But the proverb “slow and steady wins the race” made me calm. Not because i like it but because i was taught this many times since my childhood. But i think it does not fit for the fast growing world. For me it is just a way to console ourselves if we fail to meet deadlines. This proverb for me is appealing as ‘be slow, be lazy and be irresponsible’. Had we really followed this proverb, we might be in the race, although at last. But unfortunately we are so lazy or say kaamchor that we have changed this according to our lazy habits ‘slow and unsteady’. That’s the reason that now we are so slow we don’t get work completed on time and irregularities and chaos are in the whole system of India.
If this is the condition of NCR, what we can expect at other parts of India, like Jharkhand ? naxalites! Don’t need to surprise. We generally talk about position of India on the globe, vision 2020 etc. And we are dreaming of India as a developed country by 2020. Be honest and face the truth, actually saying all this we are keeping ourselves in dark, betraying ourselves.
I noticed that the autos and buses travelling in the capital are similar to those running in my own small town. I mean to say that those are not of such standard which fit to the capital of a country. Still we don’t feel shy in comparing Delhi to the big cities of developed countries. This is the metro train which differentiates Delhi from other cities of India. And gives us the confidence in saying that yes...we have something of international standard. The low floor buses running in the capital also give a rise to the life style of the delhites.
I returned after two days stay in Delhi with the hope that we will be out of this illusion and one day after few decades we will really shine in the map of world. And i said ..... ‘thank God, i am out of dhool wali Delhi’.