Early in the morning we reached Delhi. The nights have become very cold now as we proceed to the north. It was so cold and we were all bundled up in sweaters, gloves, shawls and anything that would keep us warm. Nowadays I have breakfast on the move, since I wake up with just enough time to get ready and head for the bus. The presentations and all the late blogging and chatting nights have made me tired and make me sleep heavily once my head falls on the pillow. On bus trip, ‘Doctorsaab’ aka Sujeet pointed out quite some hospitals - trauma centers, Mulchand flyover out to me since he had been to Delhi before. He even shared some anecdotes about some of his trips there when he came to give the medical exams. Soon my tiredness gave in and I dozed off.
We reached Goonj , an NGO that believes in fulfilling the most basic need of a needy and poor person – clothing. Here, we finally got to meet our role model (assigned to group P) Anshu Gupta. The stories he narrated completely shocked me. When I saw photos of naked children during the winters of Bihar, I felt ashamed. Here I was wrapped up cozily in a shawl while people all over were dying. How can we carry on with our own lives, our selfish concerns? Why do we show this indifference? Why am I not concerned? Why haven’t I taken out the time to know about my India? These questions disturbed me. Anshu Gupta’s passionate speech and description of what Goonj was doing in this direction made me feel proud to have him as our role model. We were taken through the entire process of a collection system, sorting, and segregation and distribution system for the clothes. Priyanka from the Goonj team did a wonderful job of explaining everything to us and answering our questions with patience and sincerity. She was a role model in herself – she had studied Social Work and then moved on to working for a shelter and was now part of Goonj. Goonj was a simple idea executed with a social cause in mind. It excited our entire team.
After a quick lunch, we went to the hotel Taj Palace. It must be mentioned that all the way in the bus, I was clicking photos of the greenery. The tree lined roads were really something I liked about Delhi. I wish Mumbai was as green. The air would be cleaner then. Once in Taj, we attended the fifth CNBC TV18 debate – Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, Rajdeep Sardesai and Arbind Singh. The topic of discussion was ‘Power of ONE’. I was disappointed when I found out Dr Kiran Bedi was not coming to inspire us. This was made up when I found out that my mother got to meet Kiran Bedi in a function the next day. So it’s all in the family! After the debate, I went to meet Mr. Gautam Srinivasan, the anchor for all our debates. He was his usual charming self and even joked with us! After the debate, we had tea and some cookies. Fortunately, we got a break which group P utilized in shooting the skit. It was great fun and we had the advantage of a great backdrop of the Taj Banquet hall all thanks to the generosity of the Taj. The skit was about introducing Anshu Gupta by relating to the scene of ‘Draupadi – Vastraharan’ from Mahabharata. This theme had been suggested by the boys in our group. I had written dialogues and directed the play. It was done with cool dialogues (I’m being modest!) but in a comic vein.. Krishna would speak his dialogues like Amitabh Bachchan starting with ‘Mein aur Meri Tanhai..’. It came out amazingly and we had a great laugh! We had a hurried dinner. As we rushed towards our bus, Achin, Zakir, Vinod and I were taking photos wherever we saw a suitable backdrop – be it paintings, an antique ‘jhula’, the stairs, the garden. I’m sure the hotel staff must have thought that we had never visited a hotel before! We giggled about this later – this trip made children of us – all excited and open for fun!
During the return bus trip to the Delhi Safdarjung station, I was going over all the pics and slept a little while. When we reached the platform, we had to wait for the train. It was colder than ever. One more fun first was that I even saw white mist coming out of my mouth as I spoke. Blankets and Shawls were just not enough so people were singing, dancing. Some of us sang nursery rhymes like ‘Put your right hand in’ and followed it up with steps. We even sang ‘Oranges and Roses’ and had a tug of war. We, a group of 18-25 were kids unafraid that we were dancing about and not embarrassed that people were wondering what’s going on! Finally the train arrived in the platform and I went through my motions of blogging, discussions with fellow Yatris, working on presentations, some more blogging and working on synthesis with Rohit, Achin and Zakir. We had a sleepless night tirelessly working and at the same time ensuring that we don’t sleep by sharing stories and cracking enough jokes to keep our eyes open.
Add comment