Rashtrapati Bhavan goes Missing

The sun is yet to come out, its raining heavily and he has just disconnected a call when the phone rings again. "Hello. Yes I'm on my way. In the rick. They are waiting there", he replies partly yawning and then disconnects. Two different thoughts - Oh man, how I miss my sleep. Haha, fashionably late for a person living so close - running through his head.

In a few minutes Mr R is at the airport. At the gate are Miss A, Miss M and Mr H waiting for him. (I'm using short names for the people cause I haven't consented them about this post, so maintaining anonymity plus its fun to write in third person. For those of you who haven't guessed it, yes, Mr R is me).

After waiting in a long queue (even though they had got the web check-in done) to deposit the check-in luggage they were finally aboard the Indigo Airlines for the Capital. All four of them had a seat next to the window (because badal zaruri hai) staring at the clouds as it turned colour from dark to white to the point where they were hurting the eyes then trying to get some sleep but only getting a sprained neck at the end of the two hour flight.

Badal

And finally they were at the Delhi Airport with the bundle of luggage discussing whether a metro or a cab would be better to get to the ISBT. Deciding to go by metro they reached the ISBT by a cab, dumped their luggage at the cloakroom.

The rest of the day was spent at gaining energy at Haldiram's, losing the energy by roaming in the Red Fort in the hot dilli sun and getting denied entry at the Jama Masjid because they could not plan a better time than the noon namaz time.

Red Fort

Jama Masjid

What do you do after being exhausted roaming in the hot summer of Delhi? Well, you roam a little more at the Qutub Minar, posing to get the Minar under the tip of the fingers. The exhaustion would have killed them if not for the horrible food served by the street opposite to the Qutub Minar site. After having the food the four were thinking if dying of exhaustion would have been better.

Qutub Minar

Mr H got molested (or so Mr R and Miss M thought) by the rickshaw driver who was later to take them to India Gate.

India Gate looks really beautiful in the evening shade if the crowd were to disappear by some miracle along with the garbage spread around it by the crowd. The entire trip of Delhi for The Four wasn't something extraordinary till they got to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

India Gate minus the crowd

Rashtrapati Bhavan or Presidential Residence is this awesome looking building built during the British reign. It had far less crowd around it. As the four of them began moving closer to the entrance an opposing gust of wind started to flow. Some minute dust particles gotten into the eyes of all four. As they cleared their eyes and got to move in they saw something was amiss. The Rashtrapati Bhavan had gone missing, the few people were running helter-skelter seeking refuge. That's when it hit the four of them that there was a sand storm approaching. While Mr H could only think of taking a picture in the event of a storm the others ran following Miss A and got in to the nearest Auto. Mr H eventually followed.

The Missing Rashtrapati Bhavan

Within a few minutes the four were stuffed in a rick on their way to ISBT but the sand storm followed them. The only thing visible outside the rickshaw was the wall of sand with wind that was blowing the wall on our face but the driver continued racing with nothing in view. The next few minutes seemed like hours and finally they were out of the storm. Broken branches of trees adorned the sides of the road. To make the matter worse, the dust storm was followed by heavy showers. The wind letting the water splash inside the auto. By the time the four got to ISBT their faces and clothes were caked by a mixture of sand and water.

Delhi couldn't have been anymore welcoming than this thought Mr R.

There was no news of the missing Rashtrapati Bhavan and so they thought everything was good after the storm.

...and that's how they made it through a day in Delhi.