(This piece is a humour) Final week Delhi disappeared. One second it was there, massive as life and twice as unnatural – with its VVIPs in pooh-paah vehicles and its little one beggars, its stray canines and strayer human beings, its killer buses and its highway rage, its Metro building and its never-ending rubble of excavation, its scams and its scandals, its energy brokers and its energy cuts, its Lutyens’ bungalows and its rubbish heaps, its gracious tree-lined boulevards and its males pissing in public, its pomp and its pomposity, its pageantry and its piffle – and the subsequent second – poof! – it was gone. Similar to that. Disappeared. No matter might have occurred to it? It was an enigma that had the entire nation questioning.

Had some magician, an awesome jadugar just like the legendary P C Sorcar ‘vanished’ the entire metropolis, the best way he's mentioned to have as soon as ‘vanished’ the Taj Mahal? Had aliens from outer house zoomed down of their UFOs and kidnapped Dilli in its entirety, Rashtrapati Bhavan, jhuggi-jhopris, polluted Yamuna, ladies molesters and all? However would aliens – regardless of how alien they have been – need to abduct the rattling factor?

Thoughts you, Delhi had a protracted historical past of disappearing itself. The truth is, if historians have been to be believed, Delhi had disappeared itself some eight instances, solely to be reborn in a brand new avatar, Indraprastha, Shahjahanabad and so forth. So had Delhi disappeared itself for the ninth time? And if that's the case, what wouldn't it reappear as? Commonwealth Village? Gameswalabad? However in accordance with a complete lot of individuals ^ reportedly together with Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit – barring an act of God the 2010 Commonwealth Video games have been going to be the largest non-event within the historical past of sport. Through which case, would the disappeared Delhi stay perpetually in embryonic limbo as a never-to-be-born Kalmadigaon named after Suresh Kalmadi?

Then the thriller cleared. Delhi’s disappearance had nothing to do with magicians, or with aliens. Or certainly with Suresh Kalmadi. Delhi had disappeared due to fog. Not simply fog, however the worst fog in 20 years. Some mentioned it was the worst fog since both Delhi or fog had been invented. Regardless of the case, for nearly the entire of final week, fog – so thick and impenetrable that you just felt you possibly can lower it into enormous chunks that might assist exchange all these melting Himalayan glaciers that R Okay Pachauri’s been carrying on one thing fierce about and which mayn’t be melting in spite of everything – smothered Delhi in a complete white-out and wiped it off the face of the map.

In fog-blind Delhi, planes couldn’t land or take off. Trains have been cancelled. Street site visitors floor to a standstill. 1000's of Dilliwallas have been stranded outdoors Delhi and couldn’t get again into town, and 1000's of non-Dilliwallas have been stranded inside the metropolis, unable to get out.

And due to what? One three-letter phrase: fog. As in: Fog you too. Which is what loads of all these stranded folks saved saying as they camped out for hours and days at non-functioning airports and railway stations and bus depots ready for visibility to return. Was this the satisfaction of India, the showcase capital on which 1000's of crores are being spent within the title of Commonwealth Gamesmanship? Some present, some case.

After which, miraculously, the fog lifted. The solar returned, blushing with disgrace for having gone awol and inflicting all of the pother. And – poof! – as out of the blue because it had disappeared, Delhi reappeared. Sure, by golly, there was Delhi again once more. Delhi with its VVIPs in pooh-paah vehicles and its little one beggars, its stray canines and strayer human beings, its killer buses and its highway rage, its Metro building and its never-ending rubble of fixed excavation, its scams and scandals, its energy brokers and its energy cuts, its Lutyens’ bungalows and its rubbish heaps, its gracious tree-lined boulevards and its males pissing in public, its pomp and its pomposity, its pageantry and its piffle, its…

Oh God, make the fog come again once more. Please?

(I’d prefer to thank reader Eustace D’Mello of Mumbai who steered the theme for this column.)

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