There are many incidences in life big or small which sometimes make some impact and often get along with life unnoticed. Life is a continuous process and it keeps on going whether we get any input from the external physical and social world provided we fulfill the bare minimum requirements of life like food and water.
It was the month of June, 2008, when I arrived in Delhi, capital of nation and a metropolitan city for first time in life. Being a new to city, the city and its people amazed me a lot.
I had come for counseling in School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi for admission in bachelor course of planning. I luckily got the company of a brother of my classmate from Navodaya, Saran, Bihar. We roamed around Delhi and the old scenes of history and our rich cultural heritage started unfolding layer by layer. The old Delhi is full of such wonderful monuments and traces of cultural and architectural heritage. The interwoven modernity with our ancient culture got revived in mind. I was constantly wondering how the scenes which I used to see on national channel of Doordarshan getting afresh in mind. I felt like jumping out of joy.
Many people can be heard saying bad experiences of Delhi’s pollution, traffic congestion and existence of slums and squatter settlements but these things immaterial for a boy coming from rural setting into an urban setting. I enjoyed my stay at Delhi a lot.
Finally I got selected for bachelor of planning at School of Planning and Architecture. And I got chance of staying for five years and deeply enjoying the myths and facts about Delhi and urban life. I can still recall the feeling of peace and tranquility at the Lotus Temple, where we went for a rest after the busy schedule of counseling and campus exploration.
I can say for sure that my visit to Delhi in the month of June is an incidence that change my course of life in the sense that it gave me new outlook about the things that we read in book, watch on television and finally experiencing through own eyes. This visit really provided me some cherishable moments in my life.
Shashikant Nishant Sharma
