What Mandi House is to Manesar


It has been more that forty years since the first mission on moon. Since then, moon has been invaded many times, by man or unman. But all of these missions have needed rigorous planning and plenty of Government money. And, now Richard Branson aims at sending tourists to space and someday even to the moon. 

But all that is besides the point. Mandi House is a seven-point crossing at the heart of New Delhi. It is located close to the famous Connaught Place and it is the cultural hub of the city. Other than the National School of Drama, it is home to several auditoriums and museums. But what is its relationship with Manesar? 

Manesar is a little village in Haryana about 50km away from Mandi House. Other than the silly village folk who live here, it is home to the headquarters of the National Security Guard or the NSG. NSG serves the obvious purpose of protecting our vulnerable nation against evil-doers. It is also a seat of national intelligence (or so run the rumor mills). Located adjacent to NSG is the National Brain Research Centre or NBRC as known to tempowalas, a national centre for dedicated research on the brain, the sole organ responsible for causing all problems in the world. NBRC is often lovingly referred to as mental hospital by the village folk of Manesar. 

Anyway, in NBRC lived Pintu who always wanted to go to Delhi. Delhi, the city which belongs to all yet owned by none, attracted him like a bee to honey. The city defined by the rising rental rates and home delivery outlets was an object of desire and thing of dreams for young Pintu. 

Pintu often scourged the internet for drama shows and rock concerts in Delhi. He often read food reviews and dreamt of dining in five-star restaurants. He was virtually living the good life in Delhi, except that he lived some 50km away from Mandi House. Why Mandi House? 

Mandi House was where he often wanted to go to watch good plays and intellectual aadmis. He had gone there a few times before, but it was never without prior meticulous planning and with adequate government salary money in his wallet, almost akin to a mission to the moon. And, like we look up to the sky to feel the glow of the moon, he used to look at New Delhi on Google Maps and appreciate Edwin Lutyens’ planning and architecture of his beautiful city. 

But, visiting Delhi was no walk in the park. It was a mission literally. It involved checking dates to make sure there was no conflict of interest with his work. Then the weather had to be considered as dehydration was a serious issue any time of the year in Delhi. Pintu wasn’t a very fit man, and no real training program was in place to beat dehydration, and it was not strange phenomenon in his country, as even the biggest of sports did not have fitness programs here. Then of course the icing on the cake was his mood. Though he was generally in a sweet mood, the nature of his bowel movements could change all that in no time. 

Armchair traveler could be a good way of describing Pintu, though he would deny it fervently. Also he probably had a fear of the desert sand which always had a tendency of sticking to his buccal cavity at awkward moments. Recent sand storms in Rajasthan have put even greater fear into him, and the dream of Delhi seems like it may just remain a dream. Fellow citizens of the country sympathize with this pour soul, because Neil Armstrong might have been the first one to land on moon, and though Pintu was not the first, but on tempos and buses falling apart and playing ear-jarring Haryanvi music, he was the one to visit Delhi on more occasions than one. Isn’t that quite a feat from 50km away? 

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 17, 2014 at 3:57 PM

    Some guys in my locality call me Pintu. Besides I loved whatever little I have seen of Delhi.

    ReplyDelete

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