457, 456, 455, 454, 453: A train gets canceled and other events where you miss a sliding door (more points to you if you get the Gwyneth Paltrow reference here)

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It's a hot afternoon.

I've just run home after having my nails freshly painted because I'm going away on a holiday to Delhi. I'll meet my friends there, walk around in Lodhi gardens until my purple sneakers get scuffed some more, and eat copiously with some favorite people at an assortment of fine places in Gurgaon.

The sky in Delhi has made a lover of the most cynical of hearts so I'm charging my camera to click away at the gorgeous sunsets and teal-pink sunrises and this crazy pallette of the afternoon sky where, if you are lucky, you see specks of green.

I stuff a notebook in my bag and shove some Pune namkeens in the suitcase (gifts they are) and hurry to Mumbai Central. All excited to be traveling in a train, I almost double over as I enter the station. Elbow a lady with an unwieldy suitcase and a coolie chewing paan.

I find out that the train has been canceled. That many trains have been canceled.

I could have met someone on the train who'd tell me about a buried treasure near Red Fort. I'd have taken a picnic basket with moong dal halwa and desi ghee parathas and located the treasure. That could have led me to assist William Darlymple to figure out which irresponsible Mughal king had committed that oversight.

In the metro, while getting off at Hauz Khas station, I could've tripped over a beautiful silver locket. I'd open it up and see the history of Delhi moving along in dulcet shades in miniature.


So many things could have happened. But the train got canceled and I'm back home and who knows what William Darlymple is up to!

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