The week end crowds were thin and the security extremely tight with half the path blocked for any traffic including the usual cyclists, joggers, skaters and the walkers. one of the two long stretches of water had already started showing signs of wasting away to become a dry bed and in another stretch reserved for boating, the fibre-glass paddles had been overturned and were remaining the ghost of its original painted gay bobbing self of the past.
The place is soon going to be echoing the sounds of massive cranes and boring machines as the 20000 crore mega project to replace the current path that had seen countless parades since independence for some seven decades with gargantuan concrete structures, underground passage ways connecting the India Gate to the Raisina Hills where the Presidential palace and the power centres of North Block and South Block exist. No one really knows how the new Rajpath is going to turn out to be.
Oblivious to all this a bunch of youth were seen playing footballs on the lawns, a few chirpy Punjabi families were taking selfies with their desert bikes in the backdrop of the Raisina hills and the Parliament house. A perky cop astride a motorcycle was trying to shoo away the people lingering on. This place was always a place for people to come and spend their week end peacefully, savoring on their icecreams from a large number of vendors lined up on either side and all sorts of small traders, vendors and entertainers amusing the gathered crowd.
All that is mere memory and there are no icecream vendors nor are there any entertainers with their tiny battery operated cars to amuse the children or the chaiwallahs to wet the parched tongue with their miserly tiny paper cups brimming with the magic beverage. All one can see now is cops in uniform of all colours busying themselves ensuring no one can stand or sit in this area which was the Delhi's equivalent of the Madras Marina, the French Riviera or the Manhattan promenades.
Comments