My cousin had long debated with me about the benefits and satisfaction of working for the Government. I ridiculed her. Ultimately, I guess she must have had the last laugh when I was about to depart to Delhi. I had been bombarded with the concept of being a serviceman in the Government by people of all classes and backgrounds. I was heavily pregnant with ideas and dreams in my head and subsequently the dormant gene for being a Government servant had suddenly become the aggressively dominant one. I realised the avenue through which I could finally be hands on with society and contribute towards the betterment of community at the grassroot level and my state and country at a holistic level.

 

I was tremendously inclined towards the Indian Railway Traffic Service and the Indian Forest Service. I preferred not to be the run-of-the-mill person to desperately or stereotypically opt for the Indian Administrative Service or the Indian Police Service. Not to even mention the Indian Foreign Service. One of my friends had just been recommended for the IAS through one of the world's most gruelling and labour intensive exam conducted by the Union Public Service Commission which is considered the most sancrosanct and powerful constitutional body in India. This friend of mine suggested Hamdard Study Circle to begin my preparations to appear the Civil services exam. Through a process of a written test, group discussion and personal Interview ( an interview in which I had no idea that I was being interviewed by the former Vice-Chancellor of AMU and a highly placed bureaucrat with the home ministry), I got selected into the Hamdard Study Circle, a renowned and premier Insitute for grooming civil services aspirants for the past 30 years and had consistently sent atleast 10 people every year into the civil services with the recent episode of a Kashmiri Hamdard student bagging the All-india rank of number one. There were only 40 students selected all across India.

 

Enough of the hullabaloo about the civil services. What I would really want to dwell upon is the city of Delhi, where I was supposed to be put up for a good 6 months in total. The first time I visited Delhi was in a beautiful mild fading winter in 1992. After a gap of nearly 15 years I had visited in 2007. Both were thrilling experiences. In 2010, I quit my corporate job and decided to pursue the government service which seemed so elusive to many. I was equally  excited about the travel in my favorite mode of transport - The Karnataka Express from Bangalore to New Delhi. 

 

I arrived in New Delhi on a freeezing cold January misty morning in 2011 and proceeded to my Insitute to complete my admission formalities and was soon alotted my own room. Now begins my real experience with Delhi or you can say my tryst with Delhi's underbelly. I had  never experienced such extreme weathers in my life before. A cold season for me in Bangalore was something a little more like standing motionless next to an open fridge. I was never in a situation where I had to wear atleast 3 layers of clothing to provide insulation. I felt like a whale with all the blubber. The food was the biggest dissappointment. In the India above the tropic of Cancer, spices for curries were only chilli powder, salt and chaat masala. Not to forget that water constituted almost 90% of the dish that you might as well dip your roti in a glass of hot water sprinkled with oodles of Chilli powder and Chat masala. The dishes could be aptly named Clostridium Paneer, Salmonella Gobi, E-Coli Kofta etc..I had several bouts of gastroenteritis commonly known as the "Delhi belly". It's a queer situation where in you experience constipation, diarrhoea, splitting headache and dehydration simulataneously. Ah, how you appreciate the creator for making our bodies such rigid systems, one can only tell when the "Delhi belly" is experienced on a freezing morning where you turn into a Hydrophobic maniac. One would mistake us to have rabies for being hydrophobic to even look at water. Touching water felt like having liquid nitrogen splatterd on your face. The huge dark demon eyes lizards were always on the prowl in bathrooms. They would seem to silently wait for an opportunity to rip off a chunk of your flesh when you least expect it.  The summers were no less. One would wish that the skin did not exist, the extremely high humidity coupled with swirles of the "loo" would make it miserable. Cholera was rampant in Delhi. 

 

Even the cats were probably fed up of eating the "Delhi'cious" food and loathe around looking for mice or squirrels to devour instead. The people in Delhi aren't indigenous and majorly comprised of immigrants from Bihar, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Assam and UP. The diaspora was a little hard for me to understand. There would always be a rape news every single day and murder at the drop of a hat. Swear words were the order of the day regardless of the presence of Children, Women or geriatric people. The transport was extremely pathetic except for the Delhi metro. Even narrating the actual incidents give me a virtual round of ordeal sitting on my couch. Falling sick in Delhi would probably be the worst nightmare. You could never differentiate between a doctor and a quack. The best way to cure oneself if fallen sick is to wait it out and let the body heal itself. A visit to the doctor would only aggravate the illness. 

 

Corruption galored to the hilt in Delhi. The people had no less shame than a concubine when  it came to bribery and  even discharge the basic obligatory duties. People value a two rupee coin more than feeding water to a thirsty person.The worst nightmare I faced in Delhi was the ubiquitous large plump spotted menacing lizard in the bathrooms. There were scores of them which looked like Godzilla's cousins hiding behing tubelights, water jugs, sinks, doors latches, window panes or simply above your bed on the ceiling waiting to a take free fall cushioned by me. 

 

Delhi was also beautiful for other reasons. It had a rich history with milestone monuments such as the jama Masjid, Qutb minar, Parliament building, jantar mantar, North and South Blocks etc. The power corridors and Infrastructure in the New Delhi (NDMC) area were really impressive. Most importantly Dehli was beautiful due to the company of my friends, some of whom I had met in Hamdard. The metro in Delhi is truly fabulous and efficient. But somehow the bad experiences gained precedence in my day to day life and created a huge aversion towards Delhi. 

 

Now that I am back in Bangalore, I weirdly miss Delhi. I truly loved Delhi for something that no other city in the world as of now can give me, something that I extremely cherish about Delhi, something that I savour to the hilt and would always go to Delhi without minding all the ordeals all over again, something that forms an unforgettable and pleasant experience akin to quenching your thirst or hunger or sleep - Leaving Delhi!