Paranthas, Scotch and an Exit

Jaitley’s brethren withdrew the Laddoos on offer for Dilliwalahs rather unceremoniously. One Laddoo per family was being offered as a gesture of appreciation (or was that appeasement?) for the spirit shown byDilliwalahs in overcoming the hardships of Demonetization without creating riots or organised protests (https://stateofdelhi.blogspot.in/2016/12/two-delhi-boys-and-laddoos.html ). The Asian Age claimed the withdrawal was primarily at the behest of RSS. It seems the big boys (they have graduated to wearing trousers now) of Nagpur wanted to gauge the mood of the people till end of December before celebrating. That it’s mid-January now and there is no news of Laddoos perhaps tells us something. And it obviously has nothing to do with the fact that 42.5% of Dilliwalahs are diabetic for Jaitley’s portfolio is Finance, not Health.

Winters are finally in (yes, finally!) with the mercury dipping substantially and Dilliwalahs bingeing on paranthas in the afternoon and on scotch (IMFL too gets referred to as ‘scotch’ here depending on the area’s PIN Code) from late afternoon. The cold winds at Civil Lines brought in a change of guard. Najeeb Jung quit as Lieutenant Governor of Delhi and then went on to give a rather candid interview to Karan Thapar ripping apart the ways of Arvind Kejriwal as CM. Well, for once Jung didn’t matter to Kejriwal as news came that our CM wants to be others’ CM.  No sooner was this hinted, Dilliwalahs uncorked their coveted Duty Free bubbly. The denial, however, came in much before the hangover got over.

The inner and middle circles of Connaught Place will become car-free sometime soon and if NDMC (the municipality that controls most of Lutyens’ Delhi*) allows the eateries to setup seating in the open spaces that is currently consumed by car parking – the good old United Coffee Houses, Wengers and Volgas may bring back the romance of CP (remember Ramble, anyone?).

* CP though was not designed by Lutyens (as is believed) but by Robert Tor Russel.