Leaving Base Camp Dilli

This will be a long one.
Yes. you heard it right. I shall soon be severing that long winded connection with delhi for good. Or will i? Its been 17 years of having a focal point, or a vector out there in delhi, from where i have moved here and there before always coming back to the same place. but now the point should be shifting for good. atleast for the time being. and its a good time i think to go down that memory lane ( i think i always end up liking to live in the past rather in the present - must say an irritating quirk of mine).

So it was in the summer of 92, that i first landed in the city. My father had just got posted to the city and we were to stay in guess what? The good old Red Fort. Those were the times when a small military unit stayed inside the grand old fort, a scion of the old British Era. And so we would too. Obviously it was surreal and most of my soon to be freinds refused to believe it. In fact i still remember being taunted as the so called "Prince of Red Fort" even a year down the line, by my Maths teacher ( the only maths teacher i ever hated, but thats another story). My first impression of the city was at best daunting. Delhi can be tough especially if you are a small town kid. and though we had come from secunderabad, it still was different. My first challenge was the school itself. From a small army school in secunderabad, i was now going to the Army School here in delhi which had close to 500 students per class, split into more than 8 sections. And all the kids seemed so good, so smart, speaking english fluently ( yup, that was a major thing for me then and remained for a long time, since i was bad). Did i have an inferiority complex? I still remember the first one week i dreaded going to school. the 5:30 am rendition of Om Jai Jagdish Hare at a temple nearby my house, used to be like a call to death for me every morning. And i think i spent the first week in the school sick bay everyday, with complaints of stomach ache and what not. But then as they say, everything does change. and so it did. Slowly, i managed to set in well in the school. I made a few good friends and well joined a so called gang, led by the smart K, the teachers pet, the good in sports dude, popular with all people around. Talk about being in good company. :-s. But then yes, i also started doing very well academically and that helped a lot. Involvement in extra curriculars like debates etc started and soon yes i was enjoying myself in school. By the end of the year i was yes at home in Delhi. Thus began an affair with the city.

While we stayed in Red Fort, we were kind of cut out from the real army life in a cantonment, especially in Delhi. But father always tried to make up for it, taking us to the officers institute for swimming etc. Every weekend, we would go to India Gate after dinner, and that was an amazing time, running around in the gardens around the monument, playing with balloons etc. Nirula's ice cream became a household popularity with fortnightly trips to the parlor in connaught place. Those were the days of seeing DDLJ in the crowded Golcha Cinema of Darya Gunj, then going out to have awesome kulfi faluda in the nearby dirty street of the market. This was also the time when i saw my first english film in a theatre " Mission Impossible"......boy was it tough to follow the dialogues. You see unlike most kids my age then, i did not have cable tv at home and so was left out of the Star world and other series then.

Anyways so the years passed and i moved into class 9th. This was where i made my closest freinds to day. M, K,D,S,V . We all have stayed in touch ever since and even now are. touchwood. we all always agree on the fact that the next two years were the best time in our school life. Of course, i think i missed out on some of the fun that these other brats had, since i used be a little as D called me then " Snobbish in nature" ( yeah i have it written right down in my autograph book)........always a stickler for rules blah blah......playing the cruel monitor to the hilt and failing to bring an sort of discipline at all. And so yes i did miss on some of the fun, but nevertheless i had my share of fun too. I could write a hugggeee post on those two years and also the next two too, but i think that will wait for awhile but suffice to say now that we had fun.

This was also the time when delhi started to really become a base camp for us. Dad had got posted to Jhansi, and mum chose to stay in delhi for my and my sisters education. Anyways so post my 9th class exams, we moved to Sheikh Sarai, in South Delhi. This was the beginning of a new phase for me. From being a protected army brat, who had always had someone to do his work, i was now learning to do stuff by myself. you wont believe it, but this was the first time i travelled in a DTC for myself. First time that i went and stood in a line to pay electricity and other bills. First of a number of things. I had always marvelled M at his independence and ability to do things at a much younger age. well finally i was going through the grind myself too. And all this while, the city watched, from a distance or sometimes closer too. it had been 5 years in the city and well i was calling it home, exploring newer aspects of it too.

The next two years passed in a whirl, what with engineering entrance preparations, the rigours of class 11th and 12th along with the associated fun too. as the seniormost class of the school, we had our share of fun. and yes by this time i had left my fascination with rules etc far behind. so even though i was the school captain, i would join in all the clandestine activities too :-s. One reason why i didnt work as hard or did as well as i should have in the entrance etc. Anyhow, time flew, and soon we were nearing the end of our school. In fact before we knew it we were out. into the world. we all went our separate ways, to different colleges and universities, with a promise to stay in touch. and well Delhi served its place well. the Homing ground for all our beacons as we tried to make sense of the world that lay beyond.

Mother was staying back in Noida ( where we had shifted soon after my 12th), this time for my sisters 10th and 12th, and so despite having gone for engineering to Roorkee, i had my base at Delhi / Noida. the city itself started undergoing changes with newer flyovers, newer roads, the metro construction and all. And i somehow managed to stay in touch with its pulse. On vacation trips to the city, we all school freinds would catch up, since we all came from different parts of the country back to Delhi. I made my first Barista trip here, even though we preferred to just have a glass of water instead of spending 70 bucks for a coffee. For us college brats, nothing like the pleasure of a 10 Rs Cold coffee and 7 rs Sandwich in one of the corner nooks of connaught place. and coming from roorkee, Baristas and all were a luxury still. By this time my father had moved to Jammu, and my mother continued in delhi. she had her school job, and my sister her school and then her college.
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he years moved swiftly by, with most of the action now in Roorkee. 4 years of learning, making mistakes, new freinds, misunderstandings, sorting out misunderstandings, crushes and misses, drama, and a little bit of acads :). and all this while i would keep coming back to Delhi, to check how it had been when last i left. with bi annual trips to my old school as well as reunions with school freinds, somehow the city remained alive for me.

After graduation i got a job and moved to Mumbai but the affair with the city continued. In fact i was now embroiled in the Mumbai Vs Delhi debate, starting on the Delhi side of course. years have now passed and i am still in the middle. I grew from hating mumbai to loving it but that didnt mean i liked Delhi any less. every 4-5 months i would continue to make visits to meet parents. of course beyond it the charm slowly started withering a bit, more because my freinds had gone out, things were new everytime i came, new roads, new happenings etc. Yet the thread remained all through my 4 years at Mumbai. It was again like come what may i would go back to delhi some time after all.

Past one year and more i was in hyderabad for my MBA. Papa had been transferred to Delhi about a year before that and so what had been a base camp was again our main place. We were now based in Timarpur, near the Delhi Universitry North Campus. This is a picturesque location, a proper forest in the midst of the concrete jungle. I have gone for long morning waks with dad here and loved it always. Mom continued with her school, sister had started working in delhi itself and so we remained entrenched firmly in delhi. Of course i was out, but yet like i said would always come back to the city.

Couple of months back, sister got married and moved away albeit to another place in Delhi itself. Brother in law works in delhi itself and so does she so she will stay on.

Me? I am now in Kolkata, and would have been looking forward to calling base camp D again. But not anymore. Heard the news that dad just got posted out, and this time finally after 17 years, mom will also go with him. obviously it doesnt make sense for her to stay on, what with sister gone away, self away as ever. She had continued in delhi for her kids, who now are settled or in the process. So she will now be with dad.

For me this does herald the end of somethings. Delhi will change in more ways than one and i still find it difficult to describe exactly how. Of course its nothing too big, really change is what is life is all about and you move on. From school to college to first job to mba and now to the new job. And yet a part of me has remained in Delhi all these years, a connection that grew stronger with every passing moment, every time we shifted from one part of the city to the other. Now somehow, it seems that part is going to be removed. And i feel slightly lost at times. just a simple strange feeling so to speak.

Goodbye Basecamp Delhi. or atleast that part which lay for so many years.

chaos