Why I hate my Delhi sometimes.....

It's very often said that its not buildings and gardens that make a place what it is but the people who reside there...... I second that.
Being born and brought up in the same hood, I ve had good times and bad. Even though I had been away 5 years, I had no problem settling right back in Delhi because it was as if I never left the urban jungle. Those 5 years in Manipal disappeared like free booze on a Friday night .... and I realised I had never left even though I had tried.
I ve loved Delhi, missed it , forgotten it, hated it, left it.................... but, it had never left me.
There are times when the people here smother me with so much love and concern and there are times when their fatalistic attitude infuriates me to no end.
The hypocrisy, the dirty streets,people who would con you out your underwear if they had a chance, the corrupt cops but, i guess its no different from any other city in India... or the world.

A couple of months ago, around August, I remember very vividly being woken up in the middle of the night by my mom's screams and my dog barking.
It was about 3 and i guess i was in middle of my REM sleep cycle cause I just couldn't beleieve I was in real life.
There had been a fire in our garden because the electrical circuit board had blown, and there was smoke everywhere.
We ran in our nightwear and barefeet.... all the while trying to rememeber our physics classes to decide the best way to put an electrical fire... was it sand or mud???
I was trying to call the fire station, but no one was picking up and that frustrated me further..
Within minutes the whole street was awake and around us ... not out of concern as my cynical mind suggested but out of curiosity. As we stood there in the light drizzle each man there had his own two bits to add as to how to control the fire but no one stood up to help. And all the while I was trying to call the fire station..
Finally after half hour someone picked up and this was the most passive voice I ve heard..
Here I am calling up an emergency number at 3 30 in the morning , I sure as hell dont enjoy doing it... and I am defintely doing it cause there is an 'emergency'.
This bugger picks up the phone and in a monotonous bored voice first wastes 10 second saying namaste you have reached the fire station....( somehow this panicked me.... and I have always been the calm, in control one in the family).... So, anyway he starts asking me where, when, why are you calling so late, whats my name, my dad's name .... After about 7 minutes of this inane chatter he finally conceded that I was a genuine caller and not some schizo/drunk who enjoyed wasting the taxpayer's money.
It took another 20 minutes for the fire engine to arrive...... and another 15 minutes for it to circle the colony because all the gates were closed... I felt like I was in some Jewish ghetto in Russia.. ''nothing gets out after dark, nothing gets in either''.
The watchman and his keys were missing, so we had to break the lock on the gate and by the time we got home ............... the fire had burnt itself out. imagine that
much ado about nothing
i thank god now that the fire wasn t serious and no one got hurt.
But. this incident only served to remind me how much we still had to learn.
Today, we step into 21st century, trying to match upto the superpowers in the world
we have the resources and we definitely have the intelligence and ability, however what we do lack is the will and attitude to be winners.
whenever I compare the world to one major race I always pictue delhi falling behind in the race cause it stopped to have a chat and a chai and then discuss the other player's running styles and team colours..