Delhi and the Satellite Towns – A Harmonious Daily Intoxication
By Kulpreet Yadav
Harmony and intoxication might as well sound like a wronged irony for you. But living in the city I truly love, I allow my senses to see it another way. Like when you say, the drink was stiff, but well rounded. So, the kick was well received. Anyway to make it simpler, let me hop on to the point straight from here. I am talking about the happy marriage of Delhi with the satellite towns that make Delhi a NCR.
If Delhi arrests you with Lutyen’s never-easy-to-understand labyrinthine roads shooting obediently off beautiful, landscaped and flowering roundabouts, the NCR with its skyscrapers, order (okay, chaos is being taken care off) and glitzy malls set amidst planned beautiful colonies sets your spirit free. To compare the satellite towns with the British made and Mughal sprawled amalgamation of Delhi therefore makes for a curious experience.
Let us try to see it in a little more detail. While Delhi offers calm and solace in a friendly environment of monumental relics hideously seeking attention among varietals of trees and flowering shrubs, the extravagantly opulent infrastructure of the satellite towns offers entertainment and business which the modern-lifestyle-infused soul seeks. And for someone like me, who has to drive everyday from Indirapuram in Ghaziabad to the office at India gate circle, it is transcendental bliss. Having dined at a plush restaurant with my family over the weekend in NCR, the drive across the Yamuna, alongside old fort beckoning an early morning welcome on Bhairon Singh marg, and the flowering trees bowing to greet the satellite town dwellers like me from the east with a smile on the Mathura road, the transition is both relaxing and soothing on the soul.
Delhi, at least most of which I frequent, seldom hurries me up, but strangely, I still complete my tasks on time. And when I am done, to catch a breath, the wondering peacocks surrounded by peahens set the clock backwards. Still later, finished early, the sunset over India Gate is awe-inspiring. It’s like history going down the horizons after a lazy, unhurried day with the Rajpath gently rising away on the Raisina hill, bisecting with pride the north and the south blocks in the distance blurred in haze and finally merging with the Rastrapati bhawan.
An exotic, riotous and extravagant interplay of seasonal blooms, perennial greens intermixed with numerous climbers in the so called lungs that are interspersed in the city, and a wide variety of pecking, flapping and flying birds that are dependent on these bursting spurts of volcanic nature all around, makes for the most inspiring and calming dazzle of flora, fauna and avifauna. It is like a timeless jungle adapting to the evolving need of the human civilisation – perfected to a blend that sustains each other. Well, almost… Whether or not flyways and new roads should eat away the forest bit and ruin this equilibrium is off course in the hands of the experts though I often wonder if they are experts enough. But I am sure they must be, because all this has survived far too long, and will survive the future too – a reason for us NCR dwellers to celebrate and enjoy. Until then I am sure the epileptic fascination for Delhi will continue to dominate the senses of the satellite dwellers and keep them intoxicatingly hydrated.
By Kulpreet Yadav
Harmony and intoxication might as well sound like a wronged irony for you. But living in the city I truly love, I allow my senses to see it another way. Like when you say, the drink was stiff, but well rounded. So, the kick was well received. Anyway to make it simpler, let me hop on to the point straight from here. I am talking about the happy marriage of Delhi with the satellite towns that make Delhi a NCR.
If Delhi arrests you with Lutyen’s never-easy-to-understand labyrinthine roads shooting obediently off beautiful, landscaped and flowering roundabouts, the NCR with its skyscrapers, order (okay, chaos is being taken care off) and glitzy malls set amidst planned beautiful colonies sets your spirit free. To compare the satellite towns with the British made and Mughal sprawled amalgamation of Delhi therefore makes for a curious experience.
Let us try to see it in a little more detail. While Delhi offers calm and solace in a friendly environment of monumental relics hideously seeking attention among varietals of trees and flowering shrubs, the extravagantly opulent infrastructure of the satellite towns offers entertainment and business which the modern-lifestyle-infused soul seeks. And for someone like me, who has to drive everyday from Indirapuram in Ghaziabad to the office at India gate circle, it is transcendental bliss. Having dined at a plush restaurant with my family over the weekend in NCR, the drive across the Yamuna, alongside old fort beckoning an early morning welcome on Bhairon Singh marg, and the flowering trees bowing to greet the satellite town dwellers like me from the east with a smile on the Mathura road, the transition is both relaxing and soothing on the soul.
Delhi, at least most of which I frequent, seldom hurries me up, but strangely, I still complete my tasks on time. And when I am done, to catch a breath, the wondering peacocks surrounded by peahens set the clock backwards. Still later, finished early, the sunset over India Gate is awe-inspiring. It’s like history going down the horizons after a lazy, unhurried day with the Rajpath gently rising away on the Raisina hill, bisecting with pride the north and the south blocks in the distance blurred in haze and finally merging with the Rastrapati bhawan.
An exotic, riotous and extravagant interplay of seasonal blooms, perennial greens intermixed with numerous climbers in the so called lungs that are interspersed in the city, and a wide variety of pecking, flapping and flying birds that are dependent on these bursting spurts of volcanic nature all around, makes for the most inspiring and calming dazzle of flora, fauna and avifauna. It is like a timeless jungle adapting to the evolving need of the human civilisation – perfected to a blend that sustains each other. Well, almost… Whether or not flyways and new roads should eat away the forest bit and ruin this equilibrium is off course in the hands of the experts though I often wonder if they are experts enough. But I am sure they must be, because all this has survived far too long, and will survive the future too – a reason for us NCR dwellers to celebrate and enjoy. Until then I am sure the epileptic fascination for Delhi will continue to dominate the senses of the satellite dwellers and keep them intoxicatingly hydrated.
