At my friends place in Gurgaon

Having recovered from a violent bout of flu, I bid goodbye to Agra and headed towards the capital city. My good friend Raja lives in Gurgaon with his pretty wife Sushmita and my visit coincided with the arrival of his parents the day before. Although we studied together in high school, we got to know each other better during his days in IIM-Bangalore (by any chance did you assume that I passed out of the same institution? I pretty well know that those who have known me for years now will never commit such an error and my joy filled thanks to the others who did think for a moment that there too. Ive been too much of a rebel and vagabond to excel in academics, so clearly am no IIM material.), while I was employed there. I remember spending quite a few weekends in his hostel room among the brighter brains. Our friend had over the years transformed from being a pazham/nerd/padipps to indulging in a few human vices, although he hasn’t yet managed to get rid of the good boy image and am sure it’ll stick on to him forever! Three hours of riding took me to Gurgaon, while it was a tough task to locate Raja’s flat among the maze of some 50 high storied apartment blocks. I have never managed to understand the manner in which houses are numbered; very hard to see a sequence. Since both of them were at work, I was received by his parents who would’ve clearly wondered what an idiot I must be to ride all the way from south. It must have been a shocker to any orthodox Brahmin family. After ten minutes of chit chat, aunty offered me to cook some quick lunch. For a south Indian having been on road for a month now, mostly feeding on roti and dal, it was hard to refuse home cooked iyer food. A plate full of steaming white rice, dollops of ghee melted on top of it, mixed with yellow dal (lentils) served with our very old potato fry!! His parents watched in awe at this malnourished thing wiping off the plate in no time. I had to finally say enough before they started regretting why they let me in in the first place. Having re-energized myself, it was time to fulfil my objective. Before reaching Gurgaon, I had already informed Raja, my main motive of stopping at to his place enroute to Leh- get my clothes washed! Luckily for me, he had informed this to uncle and aunty too. Shameless that I was, went ahead with the job immediately after the gluttony that I had committed. The speedometer cable in my motorcycle had been cut somewhere in Rajasthan and I wanted to get it fixed at the earliest. Since it was a few hours until Raja came home, I went out to explore the neighbourhood and hoped to get the cable fixed too. Gurgaon is a concrete jungle; huge skyscrapers lined along the roads which were heavily battered by overloaded traffic and the recent monsoons. There were malls everywhere- what on earth will people buy every day? By late evening Raja reached home and I met Sushmita for the first time (she looked like a college going kid actually). We had a late dinner and a nice chat while I shared pictures from the travel so far. The next day I managed to locate the Royal Enfield service center with the Raja’s help and managed to get my speedo fixed along with the oil change. My friend decided to take his family to an exhibition in the capital city- Delhi Ghat. I parked my bike at the metro station and took the metro train. It was impressive! Wish every metro city in the country had this facility. A pretty girl who seemed to be in her early twenties was sitting across me, while I preferred to stand. She was about five foot tall with an athletic build, a bit flat nose and white skin. Was she from South America? May be yes, or maybe not. How did I know she was a traveller? Typical characteristics like a map in hand, Aladdin pants, flip flops and a rucksack! The poor girl was being squashed by the locals on either side; unsurprisingly not by young boys, but middle aged men. This pervert was about 45 years old and he kept falling on her every now and then, while shouting on the top of his voice in his mobile phone. She finally couldn’t tolerate it anymore and just got up from her seat. No wonder ive heard New Delhi is very unsafe for woman travellers! The exhibition had food counters and handicrafts from most of the states across the country and I filled my stomach with momos and mishit doi. My friend had some shopping to do and we reached home by around 10 pm. The next day I had planned to leave to Delhi and stay there for a couple of days.