Delhi - 01 :)

One of the good things about summer training in Delhi is that I get to ride the Metro every day, half an hour each way. I get to visit central Delhi. I get to look at pigeons feeding by the score on Sansad Marg - the most perfect combination of grey and brick red there ever was. I get to plan my ever-pending trip to Jantar Mantar and Gurudwara Bangla Sahib. I get to think, determinedly, that I will wake up early enough one morning to be able to spend some time at the Metro Museum at Patel Chowk station, which is where I disembark every morning, bracing myself for the time and motion study-filled day ahead; also where I board the train back every evening from, looking forward, as I descend to the platform, to that fresh, crazy draft of air that is always rushing in from the far end of the tunnel, and which always hits me in the face, undoing in all of eight seconds the exhaustion of an eight-hour workday. It would be a real shame not to visit the Museum after having visited the station 70 times in all this summer.

I get to see fresh fruits piled four feet high at the juice vendor's, just outside Jeevan Vihar. The brightest yellow, orange, red and green I've ever seen. I get to breathe in the mild, musky fragrance of the little bud-like flowers that pepper the ground I walk on, flowers that fall with the early morning breeze from the branches overhead. I get to think the most random thoughts as I complete the last lap of the journey from Bungalow Road to Sansad Marg, skipping over the perpetual little puddle just outside the entrance to the Jeevan Vihar grounds. Nobody knows where that water comes from - the juice vendor says he sees that puddle practically every day of the year. It doesn't smell funny or look dangerous. It is just always there - that little puddle of water, one inch shallow, with petals and leaves and fallen flowers floating on the surface: Nature's very own Feng Shui bowl, meant to bring in good luck. Invariably, I find myself looking at my reflection swaying in and out of the puddle as I rush by. Invariably, I find myself smiling.

Summers in Delhi. Perfect.