It is 7th July and that last hour of the day when a red sun quietly prepares to leave for home. It’s raining cats, dogs and squirrels. Friends Santa Singh and Banta Singh are in their inaugural edition Maruti 800, which in its forced afterlife has acquired the colour of rust and traded its ignition for a mind of its own. Nobody but it knows when to start and conk out. It is on today. They are stuck in a bad traffic jam in the inner circle of Connaught Place. While turning an impossible corner, Santa on the wheel crashes into a parking lot and the two decide to leave the vintage booty there and walk on. The roads are all dug up.

The lashing rain has carved such swamps in the inner circle which are just fit to sow paddy.

Negotiating their way through dangerously dug-up lanes, the two reach the Palika Kendra building in Jantar Mantar and decide to wait inside for the rain to stop. The building, which is the New Delhi Municipal Council’s head office, is open but largely deserted at this hour.

Santa, incurably addicted to reading others’ mails and phone messages, gets hold of a foreign mail lying there open and starts reading it. This is an invitation from the French Ambassador in India who has written to the NDMC chairperson Archana Arora inviting her and a delegation to Paris — to help redevelop one of the city’s biggest squares, the Place de la Republique, along the lines of Connaught Place.

“Oye Banta. Do you know where the Place de la Republique is?” Santa asks.

“It’s not in Pitampura for sure,” Banta replies, brooding — his thumb resting on his chin and his index finger patting his lips. 

Santa hands over the letter to him and they both read it over for many times.

“But Banta, the NDMC has drawn severe criticism for its much-delayed revamp of the CP. The renovation project was conceived in 2004 and it was to be completed before October 2010. The deadline was then pushed to 2011 and further extended to March 2012 and again to December 2012 and again to June 30.”

“Is it now complete?” asks Santa.

“Far from that,” replies Banta. “The NDMC has set a new deadline, this time the July end. Digging is still going on, the overhead cables, pillars and the parking lots in several blocks are still in their initial phases of work. In fact, for the traders of CP who are the worst hit by this, it has become the saddest joke of life.”

“During the Commonwealth Games 2010, inquiries were initiated against the NDMC for irregularities in the project work. A report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India said that undue delays and poor planning by the NDMC had led to nine-fold increase in cost of the renovation project. The cost estimates of the project have been revised thrice in these years. From Rs 76 crore in 2005 it went to Rs 671 crore in 2007. But in June 2012, the cost estimate was again revised to Rs 477 crore as the volume of work was reduced by junking four proposed subways at Yusufzai Market, Estate Entry Road, Chelmsford Road and P Block.”

Banta, who is intimidated by the numbers and wears a flummoxed look, is edgy by now. “What’s your point?” he asks.

“What’s the point in them going to France?” Santa says. “Do they want this kind of redevelopment? Which takes so much time that the middle-aged people become senior citizens and the senior citizens leave for their heavenly abodes? The little Pummy becomes mummy and mummy becomes grandmother?”

“But Santa, just think, this invite must have worked so well for the NDMC’s tarnished image in the Indian media. At least, there was some saving grace after years of shame,” Banta says.

“And have you forgotten the famous adage: ‘If you cannot finish what you started. Start something else’,” Banta adds thoughtfully.

“So, jolly correct, Banta. You steal my heart. I was just worrying about that beautiful French building. Wish it never meets the same fate as our once beautiful CP,” Santa says.

The rain has stopped. They both leave the building and prepare to snorkel their way back to the inner circle where they had left their vintage car.

(The characters in this write-up, and not the facts and figures, are fictitious.)