Bura Na Maano Dilli Hai!!

I love Delhi. Minus the crime against women of course!

What do I love it for? The wide roads…the open spaces…the history…Dilli ki sardi…the one million ‘golchakkars’ the city has…for Janpath, Kamla Nagar, Sarojini Nagar & Karol Bagh…for Dilli Haat…but most of all for it’s lip smacking food whether it be the parathas of Qutub Industrial Area or Moolchand Flyover, or the Punju food you get at dhabas!!

I was in Delhi for Christmas 2 years ago (i.e. 2006) & that was the most fun Christmas I’ve had in the past five years. It was freezing & I spent the day with two of my friends from Delhi itself…VJ & SA.

Christmas was on a Monday so we had a long weekend & we spent the entire weekend doing nothing but eating! That’s right….we ate and ate and ate and ate and ate some more!!

Throughout the three days, the three of us would meet in the morning and start making plans for the day. We would make many plans but eventually we would do nothing. We would make plans, walk from one place to another, eat. Make plans again, walk to another place, eat. Make even more plans, walk to yet another place, eat again!! And we ate all the unhealthy fattening stuff in the world…aloo parathas, gobi parathas, paneer parathas (doused with butter mind you, there is no other way to eat parathas in Delhi), chhole bhature, butter chicken, gaajar ka halwa. I can’t ever forget for as long as I live how much gaajar ka halwa I ate in those 3 days! Dripping with ghee that too. We ate so much over those 3 days that when I came back to Bombay after it, I had gained 1.5 kgs!!!

Christmas day was the most fun though. We spent the day at Connaught Place. The three of us bought Santa caps (the ones that have lights on them) & we wore them around Connaught place all day. We ate, we took pictures, we harassed the roadside vendors selling Christmas paraphernalia asking them a million questions, bargaining with them & not buying anything from them. We wished random people ‘Meri Christmas’.

Then in the evening we went to PVR in Saket to watch a movie (we watched 'Kabul Express' if I remember correctly). We had to kill some time before the movie so we (surprise surprise!) went into a restaurant & ate.

When we came out (still in our Santa caps), a guy from the Airtel store spotted us & wanted to take a picture of us. He went on saying things like “You guys are looking so cool! Please let us take a picture. We will publish it in our brochure.” Basically I think he wanted to take our picture as we were the only three freaks roaming around in Santa caps & he would've printed it in his brochures to be circulated NATIONALLY with the caption "Look at the 3 Morons"!! But what the hell…it was Christmas for Chrissake!! So we let him take a picture, which he promised to mail to us but never did. It came out pretty cute, actually. Then the guy started singing ‘Jingle Balle Jingle Balle Jingle Balle Balle’ to us….which has sort of become the anthem for VJ, SA & me since then.

After the movie got over, we went to a club called ‘Café Morrison’ at South Ex, named after Jim Morrison obviously. Still in our Santa caps! Stayed there for a few hours, got drunk. After we left Café Morrison, we wanted to cut a Christmas cake (please note we were completely sloshed by this time, at least VJ & I were, not sure about SA).

There were a couple of cake shops at South Ex but they had run out of cake!! We went across to a convenience store at the gas station across from South Ex. They had cakes but not eggless ones (VJ is Jain so he couldn't have cake with eggs). Then we walked to another eating joint a little further. Don’t remember the name…it was something with an R…Rameshwar maybe? They didn’t have cakes at all! Then I think we tried finding ice-cream. Couldn't find that either, so we finally settled for chocolates.

Well, we might not have been able to have Christmas cake in Delhi but we surely had enough gaajar ka halwa to last us ten winters! Say 'Aye' to Dilli!!