Delhi Impressions

Delhi's really a city on the move. We got excellent takeout from Mainland China, a new swanky Indian-style Chinese restaurant in GK-II. That area has a cool new pub and a brand spanking new club frequented by rich college types. The cover charge at these places is astronomical: the dance place charges Rs. 2000 just to get in. The owner of the pub has a huge imported Kawasaki motorcycle parked in front just for effect; my host told me he had another of those monsters.

I think you can't have so many bars, high-end restaurants and nightclubs in a city without a young, rich population. In Delhi, it's both the young overpaid guy from the call center or the media outlet, and the kid whose dad is rich. Most other cities don't have both: they either have the rich-dad kids, or the nouveau riche kids, but usually not both.

I read Marrying Anita by Anita Jain right after my stopover at Delhi. It's an interesting book. What's striking is the fast, pub hopping dance club lifestyle she describes in that book is exactly what's on display at these glitzy new places.

Delhi has excellent shopping, and the shopkeepers seem to really know their stuff. Perhaps that's because the competitive business demands it. For example, I walk into Teksons bookstore in South Extension with a list of books, some of them obscure, and the person manning the desk seems to have an idea about most of those books. But they're also a little lazy: the hired help in the store make perfunctory attempts to locate books that they know they have in the store, and I have to push them to actually find the books. I get the feeling they'd rather be lazy and not sell the book than expend the effort to make a sale.

3-4 days later I try the same thing in Vizag, and the situation is quite the opposite. The people manning the counters seem a little clueless, but they are young, bright, and full of enterprise. I ask for Samit Basu's The Unwaba Revelations; they've only a vague awareness of the book, but they immediately comb the store for it. Not finding it, they take my number and within the hour call me to confirm that it's sold out and ask whether I'd like to order it.