2009 is probably not much different from the year gone by… though for us this 15th of August has come as a major revelation of things that we thought existed. For instance, we thought that this day, being a holiday, is a great day for visiting the Red Fort. No, it is not. No one can enter this place as the entire place is barricaded with notices barring entry are hung everywhere.

The only choice we had was to click this notice and stare at the Red Fort with our faces stuck close to the iron bars of the tall railing.

The second ‘notice’ that we saw was in a narrow bylane of Chandni Chowk… it was Maliwara… and this was parallel to Nai Sarak which had connecting lanes to it (if you had the guts to discover these connectors as many of them had dead ends… and these lanes had a width of not more than 4 to 5 ft, electricity and cable wires hanging enmeshed into each other, and certainly a pre-dominance of muslims.)

We asked one of the printing press owners there: ‘Why this notice?’
‘Hmmmm… terrorist attacks can be there… so kite flying is banned… VIPs come to the Red Fort to give speeches…’

So the Delhi Police thinks kites flying around have the potential to aid terrorists?

Here are a few I-day pictures from the Red Fort area and Chandni Chowk…

India is a country where festivities and holidays are no reason for empty roads. There were hundreds of people milling around the barricades outside the Red Fort… and were content at just getting a peep of this monument… foreign tourists included.

Some interesting snippets from this visit to the Red Fort- Chandni Chowk area…

* Specky was terribly afraid to enter the lanes and by-lanes and kept on saying: Lets go back… it is soooo dark here… seems so unreal…

* However, we kept on moving into the ‘heart’ of these by-lanes… and that is where we discovered the ‘kites banned before 10′ notice by the Delhi Police.

* Discovered that there were scooters and bikes parked one behind the other even in these 4 ft wide lanes. Rickshaws came speedily through them and one had to hop on to the stairs of some house to avoid getting splattered by them.

* We wondered what these lanes look like on a busy working day.

I think another visit to these lanes is due… though on a working day… someday!

(Arvind Passey)

Exciting day indeed… everybody wants to become a flag-seller and a kite seller a couple of days before the 15th of August every year.
Three reasons:

1. Sales of flags goes up
2. Kite-flying has become synonymous with this day
3. Buying a flag may seem patriotic but buying a charkhi a few kites is soooo exciting at any age

We decided to go towards NOIDA on 14 August just to see if these trends are alive still. And they were. The road to GIP (Great India Place) had fruit-sellers and other hawkers with an added inventory of flags and kites. Flags of all sizes… where does one put a 3 ft x 2 ft flag? Hoist it on one’s terrace? Maybe.

Even GIP had almost all shops/ outlets decorating their show-windows with the colours of the tricolour. The aisles had saffron, white, and green balloons. Couldn’t spot anyone with a tricolour dyed hairstyle… though was expecting some with this fervor.

And how can business outlets or shop-keepers resist from earning a few exxxtra bucks from this I-day zest? Schemes for buyers were plenty… there was FREE written almost everywhere… August onwards, Indian bazaars get really enticing!!

Arvind Passey