A journey to remember...day 1

Sept 30, 2006

I began my journey from Bangalore by flight to Delhi along with mom and dad. On reaching there, a cab was standing ready to pick us up and the driver dropped us at the Karnatak Bhavan, a government guest house for ministers and delegates from Karnataka arriving in New Delhi. Being the capital, New Delhi is the center of the entire political hubbub. We had the privilege of getting accommodation in the guest house since my dad works for the government. But working for the government has its flip side too. My dad forced me to accompany me and my mom to visit an old colleague of his. I was rather poor and strictly against maintaining these kind of diplomatic relationships. His name was Mr.Shrivastava and he worked in the Ministry of Agriculture. He was a middle-aged person slightly more aged than my father who is 52. He was a bachelor which came as a surprise to me when I later found out that he was rather very sociable. He gave us a warm welcome and served some cashews and kishmish to munch on. We headed for a restaurant to dine which served traditional Rajasthani thali meals - purely vegetarian. All through the course of the dinner, my dad's bachelor friend had many of his adventures to share and I lost count of how many times I kept nodding my head in approval of his heroic deeds. While heading back, we dropped him at his house before going to our guest house to retire for the day.