Home again

Home again! I landed back in Delhi on a winter night. The sky was a smoky haze and the teeming humanity outside the airport hit me hard. At midnight, the Rao Tula Ram Marg was clogged with traffic. Suddenly I felt boxed in by the whole atmosphere. The air was thick, with the collective egos of self important babus and politicians pitted together against the man on the street. There were more cars on the road and everyone seems to be in a hurry. My friend, Nandikesh from the old Victorian network had come to receive me at the airport. He had been living in my house the past one year and had gone to great pains to keep it inhabitable.
Almost immediately I felt that I have been living in a cocoon all this time. I had got used to the garbage strewn around, filth on the streets and the cows grazing on busy roads before I left. Reality hits you hard when you are back after a long break. Almost as soon I fell ill. Stomach problems and a debilitating lower back pain. I have been trying to overcome my condition and get back to work. Getting back to work meant commuting and I no more have a car. I am reluctant to call up my old associates and ask for a chauffered car for my commute. Like the common man I depend on auto rickshaws.
I tried to go by bus one day. It was a very harsh initiation into Delhi’s reality. It was a creaky Blue Line bus. The conductor kept tapping aggressively on the door. The crowd consisted largely of metro workers in helmets going home after a hard day’s work. I booked a car and took what was immediately available.
I am back at work. Seems like a strange world- in a job that is not half as enjoyable as my earlier stint. My friends tell me to be careful and that I could land in trouble with the kind of stuff I am dealing with. I no more sit in South Block but in Sena Bhawan that is undergoing modernization. There is a lot of dust all around and the rooms are dinghy and airless. My work days are much longer- partly due to my unfamiliarity with the nature of work and partly due to my apprehensions of blundering on the job. Shall find time to post something soon. Ciao