An Outlet - Part 9

27 November, 2023.

Guess who I spent the entire day with today?

Parker! I met him after a good 2 years! He is currently on a (couple of weeks long) vacation and has decided to spend it by roaming around the country as much as he can. He told me that he'd be staying at a nearby city for a couple of days and asked if I'd want to spend one day sightseeing Delhi with him.

Of course I agreed!

Okay to be honest, it wasn't really an easy decision. It's Placement season here in college and "my team-mates" have already started playing dirty. I had received a PPO long back but couldn't rest until Steffani and Ryan got placed. In Steffani's case, I had Vera to support me and it was very clear that we would be present to subdue any tricks that they tired to play against her. Her receiving a PPO right before negative week was a MAJOR relief!

Ryan's case was tricky tho. There were bound to be issues with the team given everyone's cliques and the team dynamics since last year. Me getting close to Ryan (while gradually starting to distance myself from their toxicity) created more an issue cause "the team" felt that I was passing on sensitive information to him (which I wasn't) and would go against the team to ensure he gets placed.

I could feel that they felt threatened by this and they did what they do best - started fucking with his placement chances and keeping me in the dark.

Given the kind of toxic mental drilling that I suffered last year as part of our "training" added by my own cowardness, I wasn't able to completely call them out or outrightly tell them to stop ruining his chances. Fuck this system.

But what I could do was at least be there in the processes and not let them mishandle that. (They had previously done him wrong during CV Verification and a Pre-Placement Talk).

Which is why I had initially turned Parker down when he had first asked me. However! Ryan got PPO'ed 4 days ago! So I decided to not give a fuck about anyone anymore and have some fun for once. As it is, my companies weren't slotted for today.

I woke up much later that I had planned so decided to go by cab instead of the metro even though it was expensive. I met Parker at a nice coffee shop and had some delicious coffee and pesto puff for breakfast, while starting to catch each other up on important events of our lives. He gifted me a shawl that he had bought for all his sisters during his recent visit to Amritsar.

We visited the Qutub Minar. But not before spending a lot of time in long lines to get the ticket and enter the premises. It took up a lot of our time. We explored the area and opened up about our lives these past few years.

Then we went to visit Humayun Tomb and disclosed our dating status and the stories around it. We also re-created the picture I had of Alex when I had come here in 2018 with the fam.

It was already 2:30 PM by then so it was high time we had lunch. We headed towards CP and took a look at the India Gate on the way. After parking our vehicle and walking quite a bit in search of a road side chole bhature stall (Parker wanted to have it), we finally found one. Weirdly enough, we also ate an ice cream while on our hunt.

The stall was bustling with people and it looked like we had to wait for a long time. But after figuring out the system, we eventually managed to get ourselves some food and a space on the table to help stand and eat. The food was okayish, enough to just tick the box I guess.

After having lunch, we walked back to our vehicle. We had initally thought of visiting the nearby Jantar Mantar but had to skip it due to time constraints. Shame, cause that would've the first attraction today that I hadn't visited before.

We decided to head to the Red Fort and came across a range of interesting looking "houses" of all states. As I mentioned earlier, I have been to Delhi before (in 2018) but do not remember seeing all of this.

And the couple of times that I have been here during the last 2 years, it's mostly been via metro or a set path to the airport so I hadn't really seen much of Delhi's roads.

We reached Red Fort - amidst the dewy weather - but got to know that it's shut due to a public holiday which was a bummer. We had had a good track record till then. After whiling away for a bit, we decided to go to Akshardham. I have been there twice now but I reallyyy wanted Parker to see the place and experience the light and fountain show that they exhibit in the evening.

But the journey to get there was not at all smooth! We missed so many pathways and took so many wrong turns it's not even funny. We made a 20 mins route a fucking 1 hour 20 mins one. We even resorted to driving in the wrong direction at one point.

But do you know the worst part? After all of this effort, we finally reached Akshardham AND IT WAS CLOSED! UUUHHGHH!

We were quite tired by that time so decided to just look for an eatery at the nearby mall(?). We got ourselves some chai and dosa and spoke about our next moves. My phone battery has almost run out by then but the stupid eatery had legit not even one charging point in sight. The staff was also not at all helpful.

We ultimately convinced a mobile repair shop owner to allow me to charge my phone for about 10-15 mins. Parker was supposed to drop me back to my college but it was already quite late and he would've had a good 2 and a half hour journey back and forth had we stuck to this plan so we decided to head our separate ways instead. Ofcourse he ensured that I was safely seated in my cab.

Overall, today was quite fun! Even though we're very close, I had never imagined that Parker and I would spend an entire day together - just the 2 of us - and that too in a city that is not our native place. But I'm really glad that this happened. This was also such a great pick me up in midst of what Ryan likes the call the "Battle Royale".