New Delhi

Trip to Delhi was exciting. So much had to be planned, ahead of time for my stay and travel. Given that it was my first trip to the capital. All, for few hours of, but important - visit to the US Embassy for my VISA.

Surprisingly, flight to Delhi thro' Indian Airlines was punctual. Reached late in the night. First thing that caught my attention was the lack of dust and smog in the roads around the Airport. Flying from Chennai, it looked almost like Chennai with out dust.

Delhi in my opinion is coming along really well with the CNG conversion.

Equally interesting was to find someone selling tender coconuts in the middle of the night. All my years, I've had tender coconut during the peak summer. Strange choice, that too in the middle of an highway.

In the morning, I took a long walk around Karol Bagh. So many cramped shops, mostly closed as it early 11AM by their standards. Some areas were too shady that I decided to cut short my zeal to check out the locality.

Talking in Hindi, after a very long time, was quiet an experience. While I was able to understand things really fast, communicating back had a 2-3 second lag. Faster processing of the grammar took the time, but it was nice to realize that I did talk grammatically correct, that too with ease :)

Just when I thought I had a nice trip and that I'd be flying back, the infamous Indian punctuality struck and struck hard. With 3 hours to spare, I thought I was early to the airport and thinking about how to kill time. But only after I came to the counter and checked in, I was told that my flight has been delayed by 90 minutes. Thank you very much.

I as other passengers promptly finished the rest of the travelling procedures. Flight scheduled for 10PM local time, had no announcements or arrangements, even after 10PM !!! While my blood was boiling, I could clearly sense the frustration and panic in so many others.

Finally the disgraceful staff of Go Air came along and lied flat to the face. In an hurry, they dumped all the passengers onto the plane, but only after me and others screaming for their delay. On the way I was wondering, about their customer service and in general 'the lack of time sense' among Indians.

In this aspect, I'm really ashamed of being an Indian. Indians have heard this so much that they now advocate it ! This is possible only in India. It has been repeated and followed so much, that the rough skin is refusing to get the reality in. Sickening it is. What we've failed to realize is we don't have the right to steal others' time. Wake up India, don't gloat in your history and rest on your wrong principle's, fix your basics.

After all said and done, reached home in wee hours and I was trying to erase the last 8 hours of my airport-experience and think good about others. But it was hard. Reality struck!