Stopovers and Recovery

Went to Agra last weekend to attend Lizzy's wedding. Felt really good to see Chhedi again, and also Jhumki and Kaka, and of course Lizzy, herself :)

I flew to Delhi the night before the wedding. Stayed with Kaka in Gurgaon. Saw only a little bit of the city, but my first impressions were not too positive. Gurgaon is too full of glass-facaded buildings and little else. Even the buildings are not the exceptionally pleasing to the eye, what with their non-uniform and asymmetric shapes, and abrupt lines and planes jutting out of otherwise smoothly curved surfaces.

After my first trip to Delhi last August, I have been there three more times, all in the last 5 months. In mid-March, I stopped over for a night in the city enroute from Cochin to Guwahati. In May, I was in Delhi again, while returning from Ranchi to Bombay. Was meaning to stay only for 2-3 hours, but thanks to a first delayed, and then cancelled, Indian Airlines flight, I ended up staying a night at Centaur Hotel. I am amazed by the apparent speed of infrastructure creation happening the city. The Metro is coming up fast, and I saw flyovers under construction at multiple spots. Perhaps, because I am an outsider and only have glimpsed the city for a few hours at infrequent intervals, I have not been able to see how well these projects are actually progressing. But my feeling is that Bombay is being left behind. And that makes me both unhappy and upset :(

During my trip to Delhi, Agra and Jaipur last year, I had clicked many scores of photos. I of course pretty much lost the whole lot in the 'Naples Affair'. Clicked some decent photos of the Taj during this trip.


The recovery has begun :)