DilliMeriJaan

It was my birthday and I wanted to spend it doing my favourite things – looking at trees, birds and historic monuments. So we tried hard to plan a weekend break in a place which would allow all this – in the same place. When the realization dawned, it was blinding. We had to plan the break in Delhi – where we live!! Lutyen’s Bungalow is about half a km from Safdarjung’s Tomb and the Amrita Shergill Marg entry of Lodi Garden. It is 2 kms from Humayun’s Tomb and Dilli Haat – which is a single station metro ride. The Jor Bagh metro station is also a short walk away. If you want culture, then India Habitat Center is again about a kilometre long walk along tree-lined roads. Once you are done with rushing from one historic beauty to another and taken in your fill of cultural events, you can spend many lazy hours in the garden. The bird feeders are contested territory between parakeets and squirrels. We watched their coexistence and occasional spats, with amusement. There are a numbe...

As I watch a school principal deliver an impassioned speech, on ‘doing our bit for India and taking India to highest of loftiest heights’, to her rather bewildered students, I only have one question – How?? I like Guidelines and things like ’10 easy steps to…’ articles.  So in an attempt to create a ‘Guide to be a Patriot’, I gathered data. India is too big so I reflected on how people around me, are doing their bit - to get Delhi freedom from it’s biggest threat – pollution/ecological damage.  And I categorised these under the following: 1.        Patriotic Activity Type 1 : Public Transport/Cycling. Because there is no fun polluting the air that you are breathing, all intelligent people use the Metro or cycle or at least, car pool. I know those who go to great lengths (literally) to use the metro – change trains, take e-autos to the station, and end up paying as much as fuel would have cost. The super cool ones cycle.   2...

On a Saturday, four kids and I went to spend the day “immersing in Nature” with New Delhi Nature Society. The youngest kid’s idea of a “farm” is really a house with a large garden, where white gloved staff serves you organic food, as she swings on a hammock and makes an occasional trip to the kitchen garden! Here, one had to make one’s own tea after setting up a chulhah. The older kids were thrilled because they got to dig two large holes and then ‘shake hands’ through a tunnel under it.  Young and old, all kids were very pleased about climbing a Banyan Tree. Climbing a tree looks much easier than it is and the NDNS facilitator had to almost physically hoist us up, while shouting words of encouragement like ‘Yes you can’ – I am sure he felt like a commander in war. There were three musical instruments and the most fun was a gas cylinder turned into a drum, which sounded like a santoor! Or xylophone. So obviously all the kids wanted to play it, a LOT, till a ‘Silent hour’ was ...