The Capital Cities: Flight to New Delhi and Canberra

In Flight No. 1, we covered Jakarta . Read on for my take on New Delhi and Canberra.

New Delhi: This is where I confess to not knowing New Delhi all that well. In my defence, with the NCR booming and ballooning and the Metro's recent development, most Delhiites don't know the new New (see what i did there?) Delhi all that well either. Most people who talk about 'time slowing down' in India probably haven't been here yet, as New Delhi is active enough for even a hardened city boy like me. The apartments are ugly remnants of an earlier time, and could be prettier, to say the least. The food, of course, is amazing. I find that New Delhi, to me, is more interesting in the way it differs from Jakarta. The public transport is lightyears ahead (the Metro is a huge point of pride for me as a Delhiite, and the best defense against the dreaded Mumbaikers, but not for long), the roads are worse (although less packed and marginally better for walking on), the malls have a long long way to go (I compared them to my beloved MKG in Jakarta and they all fell short), Indian poverty is of course absymal (if I could wield a wand...), and I don't think I've ever encountered the characteristic Delhiite rudeness that people speak of. On a completely unrelated note: how come Delhiites don't stick together like Maharashtrans, Bengalis, Kashmiris, Punjabis, etc. do?

                Canberra: It occurs to me that I shall soon spend more time here in my first year than I ever have in Delhi: how do these things happen? I like to call Canberra 'the capital in the middle of nowhere' (I mean seriously, no international flights?) and as Australia's capital city one would expect quite a bit from it. In the way it (as a developed country capital) differs from Jakarta and New Delhi (stereotypical rapidly developing developing (and I did it again) country capitals), I find it fascinating. It can have a very quiet, sleepy, suburban atmosphere, with five populated clusters separated by undeveloped natural land. It is orders of magnitude more walkable than Jakarta and New Delhi, but strangely has absolutely terrible public transport (bad bus service, no other options). One has to actually call taxis (are you kidding?) and there is one mall in the city centre, confusingly titled Canberra Centre Mall. One. Thursday nights here are incredible (if you're a fan of the heavy heavy drinking culture or simply enjoy watching people get smashed like I do), and I think this is because civil servants (government is the single largest employer) get paid every second Thursday. This means cheap drinks (the holy grail of every starving, but at least now not thirsting, college student). The people here are surprising in the extremity of their niceness, and as far as racism is concerned, I feel quite safe, or at least no more unsafe than anyone else (college students vs. townie tension + lots of alcohol = this won't end well). Canberra definitely doesn't have a big city feel to it, and in some ways seems less full-featured than either Jakarta or Delhi, but is definitely not dull.

                So there you have it. In conclusion, both Jakarta and New Delhi beat Canberra in terms of big cityness, but Canberra has charms of its own. If you stayed with me through all that, congratulations! You have earned the 'finished imposingly long article' achievement award.


-Vaibhav Sagar