Winds of change are blowing in Delhi. Madam Sheila Dixit is back as CM of Delhi for a third consecutive term beating the anti incumbency factor again and as promised development should not stop. Delhi is standing up vertically on its feet. Turn your head, positive change is all around. The roads are cleaner, slums have dissipated, expressways, underpasses, flyovers, delhi metro, hotels, stadia, all springing up. We wake up each morning and the purified air fills the respiratory system.
I remember my early days of college. My parents did not let me to the luxury of driving our family car (A white Zen) to college just because i wasn't 18 (legal age for procuring a driving license in India) yet. Reluctantly i used to take an auto and haggling with the autowallahs used to be such an ordeal. Add to that the agony of being knowingly fleeced by them parasites, i used to hate my auto excursions to college. In due course I acquainted myself with the DTC buses and even though I had to change a bus en route to college, it used to be a gainful reprieve from the autowallahs. The buses were no better except for the standard fare system. The seats used to be full of muck (even though i rarely used to find a seat, added with the leucocytes of chivalry bored into my blood stream by my parents and teachers), the window panes in dire need of replacement. The windows either used to rarely open or if open, then rarely close, never budging either ways. Add to that the uncivilised crowd in the public transport, travelling to college still remained an ordeal.I used to pity the females who had to go through the same grind, day after day. Eventually i procured a driving license (god knows how i managed it, but that's another story!) and started driving to college putting an end to my wellbegone woes.
Cut to the present, seven years have past, I had the misfortune of travelling to my office by auto once again, thanks to my uncle who has arrived from the Dollar Country for a month and who apparently needs my car more than myself. Groaaaan! I lugged my briefcase (thanking myself for its small size) in one hand and my laptop on the other shoulder (cursing myself for its massive size and weight) and started on my 13-km journey by waving for an auto. I braced myself for what was to come, but apparently it never came. The first auto I waved agreed to hitch me and unbelievably started the meter without bothering to ask for a ransom, which i must admit was a scenario I never witnessed my first three months of college when I used an auto for the last time. It was a shocking revelation and surprisingly it continued. I was surprised, albeit pleasantly. Winds of change ARE blowing. I smiled!