We were still getting weird glances and nods from anyone, especially the locals, regarding our choice of residence here in Delhi. Our standard answer was “to try something different”. Acclimatising to how the Delhi-wallahs referred to affectionately “back lanes”, we explored many of these “backsides” of the dirty, dusty streets and fully expended ourselves before moving on from here.
A sandstorm had blown its remnants into Delhi overnight and we woke to a morning that felt like the entire city had been draped over by a giant coughing cloud of old linen. People still went about their usual business, I was finding myself getting sick again. The bug wouldn’t allow my good self to put anything or much into the system but I took a chance (more out of desperation) with the nearest chemist that I could find to get something to stop the pain. Holding that big yellow phosphoric looking pill in hand, I evoked the name of Ganesh and popped it in. So far so good.
On the way back to our base, a friendly English speaking Indian offered to converse and “advised” us nicely to not heed any touts that prowled our street. We should head to Connaught Place to make any bookings. Just when we were about to hail an auto to make our way to the New Delhi train station, our sugary talking new friend mentioned he had a guy waiting for us to take us there. Given Rs30, we thought what the heck. We knew somehow somewhere sometime down the line, we would be taken for a ride. It just mattered how far that rope went. Much to our dismay, we discovered that getting to the train station wasn’t that big a deal – the driver just told us that he drove better without opening his eyes, but oh no sir, the other drivers on the road, they drove bad even with eyes wide open. I just kept mine eyes wide shut.
For all the chai I had drank to keep the system down, I nearly felt a bit woozy when we arrived at the station. Tepid smell filled the air and there were people everywhere, carrying every baggage imaginable and fathomed beyond our wonderings. One man dragged a really heavy wooden case that I suspected was a sewing machine hatching inside… perhaps he was a tailor doing some travelling? And we found out that “foreigners” were supposed to go back to Connaught Place to get their tickets done as the offices had moved. A tall walrus-moustached Singh took us to his cabbie friend and “advised” us to not pay more than Rs10 for both to make it there. Upon entering the cab, the fare went to Rs20. Demarcation zoning hadn’t been that sophisticated in a while. Anyway we were chauffeured to Block N1 in front of a corner shop that looked like a cheesy car dealer unit with a huge sign proclaiming “Government-approved tourist information centre”. It even had the ubiquitous “I” sign. We cut a pretty good deal to take us up to Srinagar (capital of Kashmir) before making some trekking adventures into the Leh area. Snow season permitting, we may see how much we can achieve up at “India’s own Switzerland” before chartering an interesting path back to Dharamsala and Amritsar (Punjab) before training it to Rajasthan.
Our new friend, Nazeer, spoke eloquently in English, Italian and a hint of Scottish. He indicated to us to “take our time as business is not important, I want to build relationship”. It was never that easy when we were sussing out high school dating, this man wanted to go straight to the point! Some hot chai later, we decided to take a 3-night plus Jet Airways up to Kashmir and he’ll throw in the half day Delhi by driver for free. This was so not an independent Government body! We were taken to the Indira Gandhi Memorial and spent a good afternoon there absorbing the birth of an India that inspired lots. Nehru and the revered Babu, Gandhi himself had set a path that only was bathed in patriotic bloodshed of the next generations of political icons bred in a family that indeed led such a unique life. Even in death, they spoke out to us strongly and I felt for the first time, I was finally doing something to get to understand a bit of how tumultuous India’s history had unfolded and untold. With time not being on our side, we could only cut a short drive over to the Parliament and India Gate. Dinner followed quickly at a small bar with great Punjabi food.
As the slow wheel of poverty turned like a lazy old film along the window screen while our driver took us back to Pahar Ganj, I watched as scruffy barber sat on the pavements tending to their clients for a shave while dogs slept on the sidewalks… some looking blissfully away in a world that comforted my thought that perhaps they may not wake again to another day of uncertainty. Kids banged on the window of my side of the car broke my thoughts. I smiled but shook my head. Failing to sell me his old copy of The Times, he smiled and waved. I waved back and he gave me a thumbs-up. His friend quickly came up from behind bearing a hand-drawn curly moustache on his young face. Our car raced off to quickly miss mowing down a crossing pedestrian. Welcome to everyday life in Delhi.
The last shouts of crackling parakeets and the lonely screech of the Royal eagle served an underline end to the day’s dying rays. As the dusty rose coloured sky gave way to an opaque grey evening, we came home to some hot tea. I wanted some black tea to just calm the system down. My cup came looking a mysterious malty chocolate. I did take a bit, but a hot shower seemed to be something I needed more at that moment.
I felt very uneasy, sort of like a human bottle of bad champagne that somebody had given a hard shake. And it all came out once the cork popped. I had a long hard cry with the full trimmings. All grief and disbelief came out in glorious bubbles of wails and sobs. My emotions shot out in frothy fizzy bouts of snorts and chokes. I was almost inconsolable. I cried about everything that I had seen and harboured since arriving in this city, but I cried most when my mind began to extrapolate my dogs leading the homeless lives of the many strays in Delhi. I was getting delirious and poor hubby had to evoke the timeless but proven ante dote to this bout: telling me warm stories of their real lives back in the comfort of their boarding at that very moment. Things became better, I guessed I had emptied the entire bottle of tears in me, to the last drop, and scrapped the bottom dry.
Leaving Delhi would be like leaving the library without finishing the books you wanted to read. I had more questions about the shedding of more blood instead of hatred, the constant collision of lives and survival if not colour, creed or caste. How some could see that collecting dirty water from the drains as something normal in life. How one could endure day in and out, the constant demand of begging and working out a morsel of grub to ease the night’s grumbling stomach. This doesn’t stop here, it is a daily confrontation and it doesn’t stop even when I am no more in this town.
Maybe Delhi thinks it’s normal. Maybe She is used to it. There is an unbreakable trail of migrants coming into this big necropolis of dead bygone souls who preceded them, yet one comes with the belief that it couldn’t be worse than it is back where they are running away from. Yet, how many lived long enough to return to your place of birth. Too many we spoke to were not originally from Delhi. Will they miss home? Or they see Delhi as the last game point?
I probably will move on from New Delhi without truly experiencing the intricate layers of haves and have-nots of the lonely, desperate, and destitute. But having come to Delhi, I felt that it was as close as I can get to entering into a chamber suspended in time, where all my fears – of poverty, of not enough kindness to go around, or animals being subjected to even less compassion when we already hadn’t enough for our kin, of the nouveau riche parading their ugly obesity in front of the invisibles that served them, of the injustice, of the history – all these within the confines of a few days, I had to look at in the eye, and whatever that I couldn’t put a finger on, only too easy to sweep again underneath somewhere dark, to be thought about when I want to ponder about this thing call saving and helping the world to become a better place.
So much held between the “old Dehi” and “new Delhi”. Of her aristocratic past and new debauchery, of what the Partition had done and left behind, of Delhi Urdu and the impending death of it, of an old legacy being supplanted by newer concerns. So much of Delhi lies between her remaining walls, her rubbles and broken lives of the people. How many of the original blood was still here? How much has been added to the present day’s cocktail of sophisticated yet complex pool of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim faces? What about our values and ways of lives? Even between one group, the differences between the young and old seem all too much to figure out. How and where do we start or stop?
Can Delhi change her historical past? Can She bring back the romance of a bygone era? How would She look upon her issues of hungry mouths and extended dirty begging palms? Does She weep seeing Her ShahJahanabad today? The old mansions deteriorating to the present day’s dilapidated state, this old ancient jewel box of fortune, fame and fanfare… the beloved of the gods, the seat of Mughal power, the womb of great poets and writers?
I cradle all these musings in my arms and between the warmth of my heart, I seek to find some sense out of the sheer delightful madness I had seen over the past week. As each night passes into the next as the hour marked by the dull clanking of the night guards dragging their boots and sticks across the dusty lanes, you continue thinking.
Only, could I?
A sandstorm had blown its remnants into Delhi overnight and we woke to a morning that felt like the entire city had been draped over by a giant coughing cloud of old linen. People still went about their usual business, I was finding myself getting sick again. The bug wouldn’t allow my good self to put anything or much into the system but I took a chance (more out of desperation) with the nearest chemist that I could find to get something to stop the pain. Holding that big yellow phosphoric looking pill in hand, I evoked the name of Ganesh and popped it in. So far so good.
On the way back to our base, a friendly English speaking Indian offered to converse and “advised” us nicely to not heed any touts that prowled our street. We should head to Connaught Place to make any bookings. Just when we were about to hail an auto to make our way to the New Delhi train station, our sugary talking new friend mentioned he had a guy waiting for us to take us there. Given Rs30, we thought what the heck. We knew somehow somewhere sometime down the line, we would be taken for a ride. It just mattered how far that rope went. Much to our dismay, we discovered that getting to the train station wasn’t that big a deal – the driver just told us that he drove better without opening his eyes, but oh no sir, the other drivers on the road, they drove bad even with eyes wide open. I just kept mine eyes wide shut.
For all the chai I had drank to keep the system down, I nearly felt a bit woozy when we arrived at the station. Tepid smell filled the air and there were people everywhere, carrying every baggage imaginable and fathomed beyond our wonderings. One man dragged a really heavy wooden case that I suspected was a sewing machine hatching inside… perhaps he was a tailor doing some travelling? And we found out that “foreigners” were supposed to go back to Connaught Place to get their tickets done as the offices had moved. A tall walrus-moustached Singh took us to his cabbie friend and “advised” us to not pay more than Rs10 for both to make it there. Upon entering the cab, the fare went to Rs20. Demarcation zoning hadn’t been that sophisticated in a while. Anyway we were chauffeured to Block N1 in front of a corner shop that looked like a cheesy car dealer unit with a huge sign proclaiming “Government-approved tourist information centre”. It even had the ubiquitous “I” sign. We cut a pretty good deal to take us up to Srinagar (capital of Kashmir) before making some trekking adventures into the Leh area. Snow season permitting, we may see how much we can achieve up at “India’s own Switzerland” before chartering an interesting path back to Dharamsala and Amritsar (Punjab) before training it to Rajasthan.
Our new friend, Nazeer, spoke eloquently in English, Italian and a hint of Scottish. He indicated to us to “take our time as business is not important, I want to build relationship”. It was never that easy when we were sussing out high school dating, this man wanted to go straight to the point! Some hot chai later, we decided to take a 3-night plus Jet Airways up to Kashmir and he’ll throw in the half day Delhi by driver for free. This was so not an independent Government body! We were taken to the Indira Gandhi Memorial and spent a good afternoon there absorbing the birth of an India that inspired lots. Nehru and the revered Babu, Gandhi himself had set a path that only was bathed in patriotic bloodshed of the next generations of political icons bred in a family that indeed led such a unique life. Even in death, they spoke out to us strongly and I felt for the first time, I was finally doing something to get to understand a bit of how tumultuous India’s history had unfolded and untold. With time not being on our side, we could only cut a short drive over to the Parliament and India Gate. Dinner followed quickly at a small bar with great Punjabi food.
As the slow wheel of poverty turned like a lazy old film along the window screen while our driver took us back to Pahar Ganj, I watched as scruffy barber sat on the pavements tending to their clients for a shave while dogs slept on the sidewalks… some looking blissfully away in a world that comforted my thought that perhaps they may not wake again to another day of uncertainty. Kids banged on the window of my side of the car broke my thoughts. I smiled but shook my head. Failing to sell me his old copy of The Times, he smiled and waved. I waved back and he gave me a thumbs-up. His friend quickly came up from behind bearing a hand-drawn curly moustache on his young face. Our car raced off to quickly miss mowing down a crossing pedestrian. Welcome to everyday life in Delhi.
The last shouts of crackling parakeets and the lonely screech of the Royal eagle served an underline end to the day’s dying rays. As the dusty rose coloured sky gave way to an opaque grey evening, we came home to some hot tea. I wanted some black tea to just calm the system down. My cup came looking a mysterious malty chocolate. I did take a bit, but a hot shower seemed to be something I needed more at that moment.
I felt very uneasy, sort of like a human bottle of bad champagne that somebody had given a hard shake. And it all came out once the cork popped. I had a long hard cry with the full trimmings. All grief and disbelief came out in glorious bubbles of wails and sobs. My emotions shot out in frothy fizzy bouts of snorts and chokes. I was almost inconsolable. I cried about everything that I had seen and harboured since arriving in this city, but I cried most when my mind began to extrapolate my dogs leading the homeless lives of the many strays in Delhi. I was getting delirious and poor hubby had to evoke the timeless but proven ante dote to this bout: telling me warm stories of their real lives back in the comfort of their boarding at that very moment. Things became better, I guessed I had emptied the entire bottle of tears in me, to the last drop, and scrapped the bottom dry.
Leaving Delhi would be like leaving the library without finishing the books you wanted to read. I had more questions about the shedding of more blood instead of hatred, the constant collision of lives and survival if not colour, creed or caste. How some could see that collecting dirty water from the drains as something normal in life. How one could endure day in and out, the constant demand of begging and working out a morsel of grub to ease the night’s grumbling stomach. This doesn’t stop here, it is a daily confrontation and it doesn’t stop even when I am no more in this town.
Maybe Delhi thinks it’s normal. Maybe She is used to it. There is an unbreakable trail of migrants coming into this big necropolis of dead bygone souls who preceded them, yet one comes with the belief that it couldn’t be worse than it is back where they are running away from. Yet, how many lived long enough to return to your place of birth. Too many we spoke to were not originally from Delhi. Will they miss home? Or they see Delhi as the last game point?
I probably will move on from New Delhi without truly experiencing the intricate layers of haves and have-nots of the lonely, desperate, and destitute. But having come to Delhi, I felt that it was as close as I can get to entering into a chamber suspended in time, where all my fears – of poverty, of not enough kindness to go around, or animals being subjected to even less compassion when we already hadn’t enough for our kin, of the nouveau riche parading their ugly obesity in front of the invisibles that served them, of the injustice, of the history – all these within the confines of a few days, I had to look at in the eye, and whatever that I couldn’t put a finger on, only too easy to sweep again underneath somewhere dark, to be thought about when I want to ponder about this thing call saving and helping the world to become a better place.
So much held between the “old Dehi” and “new Delhi”. Of her aristocratic past and new debauchery, of what the Partition had done and left behind, of Delhi Urdu and the impending death of it, of an old legacy being supplanted by newer concerns. So much of Delhi lies between her remaining walls, her rubbles and broken lives of the people. How many of the original blood was still here? How much has been added to the present day’s cocktail of sophisticated yet complex pool of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim faces? What about our values and ways of lives? Even between one group, the differences between the young and old seem all too much to figure out. How and where do we start or stop?
Can Delhi change her historical past? Can She bring back the romance of a bygone era? How would She look upon her issues of hungry mouths and extended dirty begging palms? Does She weep seeing Her ShahJahanabad today? The old mansions deteriorating to the present day’s dilapidated state, this old ancient jewel box of fortune, fame and fanfare… the beloved of the gods, the seat of Mughal power, the womb of great poets and writers?
I cradle all these musings in my arms and between the warmth of my heart, I seek to find some sense out of the sheer delightful madness I had seen over the past week. As each night passes into the next as the hour marked by the dull clanking of the night guards dragging their boots and sticks across the dusty lanes, you continue thinking.
Only, could I?
