Delhi, Day 2

Well once again there is a bit of an unintended gap between posts, but Christmas and then another quick trip to Bombay sort of got in the way. But, though a bit late, here is the previously promised post on our second day in Delhi!

Some kids wanted my picture in front of  the tower

Basically our second day was dedicated to the main sites which are actually within the city. So first thing in the morning we packed into our Mahyco cars and headed off to the first of many Delhi icons- Qutub Minar. As soon as we arrived I could tell why this had been assigned so much importance within the city. Amidst arching gates and pillars, a massive tower built of red sandstone simply erupts from the ground. From the very base up to as high as I could see, the tower was wrapped in intricate carvings, particularly inscriptions from the Qur'an. Try as I might it was impossible to imagine such complexity being built close to a century ago, without the modern ease provided by cranes or power tools. How the largest tower in India could have been developed from the ground up out of sheer piles of stone I simply don't know. It makes me realize that while the size of construction may have exploded since 1200, that in no way reflects the imaginative scope it takes to build something like this. No one today would suggest a construction that would span multiple generations, and no where will you find thousands of workers willing to start a project they will never see to the end. The ambition and dedication needed to build structures such as this one will never cease to astound me.

The Lotus Temple from the garden in front.

From there we went to a more modern Delhi sight- the lotus temple. The lotus temple is, as you would guess, built in the shape of a giant lotus flower. It is basically a nondenominational place of worship, though technically it is associated with the Baha'i faith (which thinks that belief and prayer of all kind is holy). I thought it was a really clever building, with pools all around it to simulate a lotus sitting in water. And though it was bustling with school kids and tourists such as ourselves, as soon as you get inside you are met with peaceful silence. I have been in a lot of massive churches, but this one didn't feel anything like those. It was very modern, so the inside was filled with steel arches and supportive beams. I thought it was very interesting, and totally different from most of the places of worship I have visited while traveling.

Next we met Usha for lunch at a place called Karim's, which is a Muslim restaurant. We made our way to the predominantly Muslim part of the city, and pulled up along the main street. From there, the roads were too narrow to continue by car, so we walked out into the winding streets. It is always easy to tell when you have moved into a Muslim area of a city simply by looking around you. For one thing, you will see a lot more people in Muslim clothes, and along the roads all of the shops start selling prayer mats and the traditional skull caps. But another easy way to tell is suddenly instead of just Hindi or sometimes English, all of the signs are written in Urdu, and then sometimes Hindi as well. After wandering through congested streets, we finally made it to the restaurant.

I'm sure the architecture style looks quite familiar.

Karim's is famous for their kebabs, so it was not exactly ideal for vegetarians. But in India there will always be something vegetarian, and they also had fantastic rotis (breads) so I was not complaining. Unlike Hindus, most of whom are vegetarian, Muslims eat a lot of meat, mostly chicken and mutton. So, to continue the Delhi trend, we vegetarians had some paneer, as well as two other vegetable dishes, which were quite delicious. Usha met us at the restaurant towards the end of lunch and we continued to our next sight, which was actually just a few blocks from us. Soon we found ourselves at an arching gate, which would lead us to Humayun's Tomb. Humayun was a Muslim emperor during the Mughal rule. Mughal Emperors ruled for a long time not only in India, but in a good deal of Asia and the middle east. A lot of India's most iconic structures, like the giant dome of the Taj Mahal and other similar buildings, are actually due to this Islamic influence. So Humayun's Tomb also had the characteristics of Mughal buildings- a red sandstone building culminating in a white marble dome. And of course, from top to bottom it is laden with carvings in different coloured stone, both decorative and words from the Qur'an. And one of my favourite details, were the beautifully kept gardens which surrounded the tomb.

Once we had seen some incredibly impressive sights, we decided to finish off the day with a bit of Delhi shopping. A relative of Usha's has a jewelry shop in a nice area of Delhi, so we visited there and wandered a bit in that area, popping into tea and antique shops. Then we were taken to a special scarf and shawl shop, which is particularly known for their pashminas. We spent at least an hour and a half being shown various colours, patterns, and grades of scarf, and then of course once we had selected, we had to begin the tedious haggling process. In most nice Indian shops, you don't actually browse for things. Rather you sit around a cushioned table as the employees of the shop toss item after item in front of you, piling things up until they are eventually swept away and the process starts all over again. We easily saw hundreds of things before we eventually made our choices.

By the time we got back to our hotel we were exhausted from a long day of sight seeing. Rather than attempt to find somewhere nice to eat, we settled for order in pizza and an early night. The next morning we would have to get up early to head for Agra, and I for one was very grateful to settle into my bed. Once again, I think it is probably in all of your best interests that I leave this post here and write up another one for the next day. However this time I will actually be speedy with my further writings! After all, the next day would be the pinnacle of any tourists visit to Delhi, and perhaps India in general. 

Arrival in Delhi

Well it has been quite a while since my last post, but believe it or not I am still in India and I swear I haven't forgotten entirely that I should be writing about it. The past two weeks I have actually been away from school, the first of which producing very little write about, and then the past few days suddenly there is a lot to report. Two weeks ago I started to get pretty sick, and low and behold I came down with more or less my first Indian illness. I figured it was only a matter of time, since the Jubilee kids all started getting sick at the same time, when season changed. After all, I am really doing the same thing that they are- trying to build up the immune system to handle a brand new place. So I spent about a week battling off both a bacterial and viral infection, thus producing very little of interest to write about.

Lucky that the sickness happened when it did though, as the next week would bring the trip to Delhi we have been planning for a while. It actually worked out perfectly, with me getting rid of all traces of microscopic invasions just before we left for our trip, which I had been looking forward to since I got here. We left early Monday morning, along with Ben and Brian's cousin Nikita, who hadn't seen the Taj yet and jumped at the opportunity. We reached Delhi in the late morning, and headed straight to our hotel. As always I was excited at the prospect of driving around a new city for a bit, trying to get my bearings and pick out some differences. Right away I noticed that Delhi felt much less dense than Bombay, and the roads, which can be such a huge problem, were actually in fairly good condition. Because Bombay is located on an island, it needed to be tightly packed and built as tall as possible, sort of like New York City. But Delhi doesn't have this constraint, so it is not nearly as vertical as Bombay. There are still a lot of really big modern buildings, but most of those are longer and wider, so you don't exactly feel like you are being surrounded on all sides, as in Bombay.

We reached the hotel, which was right in the heart of a street market. My Mom had flown in early that morning, so I was excited to see her for the first time in months. We all met up, and decided to head out for an early lunch before starting off the day. Usha had business that day, so she was more or less orchestrating our first day from afar; texting us how to get to good restaurants and which sights we should be seeing. She guided us to a great restaurant just around the corner, and we got our first taste of Delhi food of the trip. If there is one thing that Delhi is known for, it is probably paneer. Every meal had at least one, if not two, paneer dishes, and while absolutely delicious, I can pretty confidently say we will be evading the bags of dense cheese  in our own freezer for a few weeks now.

One of the government buildings.

From the restaurant, the six of us drove to our first few sights of the day. There was a noticeable shift the closer we got to India Gate, as streets that were once densely populated by locals transformed into floods of tourists, just like ourselves. The once unfamiliar attention Michael and I get in places like Jalna and Aurangabad has become so ordinary, that at first even I have to adjust to suddenly having foreigners all around me. It actually helps me understand the tendency that locals have to stare, as even I found myself wondering what these travellers were doing in India. What brought them here specifically? Is India just another place on their list of vacation destinations? But people watching, while at times pretty interesting, was not what had brought us here in the first place. As soon as we started walking around, my attention was pulled from my fellow sight-seers, and towards the magnificent structures around us.

India Gate!

India Gate is surrounded by the buildings of Parliament, built in the time of the British. We walked for a while between massive buildings built of a sandy red stone, and at the end of the avenue we reached the President's house. It was gated off, so we couldn't get too close, but the intricacy of the stonework and massive lawn was impressive nonetheless. At the other end of the road we reached our main attraction- India Gate. India Gate is a massive stone archway, built to commemoration Indian soldiers from various wars. When you see video clips of processions in Delhi, they are probably set right in front of the Gate, so it was a fairly familiar site. Of course, as one of the city's most popular tourist destination, there was an immediate onset of touts, pushing their trinkets and souvenirs. I have become pretty familiar with the rush of various touristy must-haves, but I think this was the most aggressive pushing of goods I have ever experienced. One woman who was doing henna actually grabbed my hand and tried to forcibly apply the designs to my skin. I don't really hold it against any of them though, and in the end I still got to see an amazing monument.

The rest of our afternoon was pretty relaxed. We went to a shopping area called Connaught Circus, which was just a series of little shops built into the original British buildings. I always think it is so interesting when the original architecture is preserved and modern things like stores take over the interior. So I enjoyed checking out the buildings as we wandered around for a little bit, before Brian left to pick up his and Ben's cousin Mike from the airport. The rest of us went back to the hotel and decided to check out the surrounding market. I think there is something very unique about the experience of walking around street markets. It is an experience that I have often missed in the United States, because it feels so much more involved than the generic shopping mall. So I had a great time looking at what the stalls had to offer, and of course observing the people around me. There ended up being a couple of things I was interested in, so I also got to experience one of the most iconic parts of a street market- haggling. Of course, being white and speaking minimal Hindi doesn't make it too easy, but I ended up dropping the price from 350 to 250, and it was definitely something new, so I left pretty happy.

We ended the night with dinner back at Connaught Circus, at a place called Kwality Restaurant. While in the United States I would probably take this title to be blatantly sarcastic, and guard myself against glaring fluorescent lights, plastic booths, and intestinal bombardment, in India that is a perfectly respectable name. Indian shops and restaurants are frequented by cutesy spelling and puns, which actually helps them to stand out, rather than forcing them into the American realm of tackiness. Once again we were treated to plenty of delicious Delhi food, and left very satisfied. We opted for an early night, as the next day would of course, be very busy. But I think our second day in Delhi will require its own post, because the current length of this post is threatening to thoroughly overwhelm any reader. Don't fret, I wouldn't dare put you through the intensity of a post four times this size. But believe me, this was just the beginning of our Delhi adventures!

The Little Things

I think one of the reasons you really have to visit a place to understand it, rather than simply reading about it, is that for the most part research and reading just gives you the big picture. And while getting a general perception of a place is a good thing, what I always miss are the little details that completely endear a place to you. I love noticing the little things about a place that make it special, and that is something you can only get from seeing it for yourself. So I thought I would do a blog post about some of those things- details that might be overlooked in the usual big-picture blog post. So here you go, random thoughts on what I love about India!

• Ok so it probably doesn't come as much of a surprise that one of the first things I started noticing was the language. And I don't just mean Hindi, I am talking about the difference between American and Indian English. I can't help but notice the way things are structured and phrased, and there is something really fantastic and interesting to me about Indian English. Basically Indian English consists of a lot of direct translations from Hindi that add a bit of a confusing flourish to the language. My favourite example is a teacher at school, who in response to a student chewing his fingernails snapped, "Hey! Don't eat your fingers!" Then there is the accent itself, with its unexpected puffs of air, accentuated consonants, and warped vowels. In short, I never tire of simply listening to daily conversation.
• Massive metal monstrosities flooding highways, couriering boxes of paperclips or burlap sacks filled with Iowan potatoes, while common-place in America, would seem in India like technology on display in an art museum. For one thing, there aren't really "highways" for them to drive on, but the main point that I am trying to make is that Indian trucks actually bring something interesting to the table. They are all painted bright colours, often with designs criss-crossing from one side to the other, or thin chains draped along the bottom decoratively. Then on the back each of them says something along the lines of "Horn OK Please" in elegantly slanted letters (yet another example of the comedy of Indian English). But my favourite bit of all is the horn. Rather than the constant grating honk of an American semi, the trucks play little bits of Bollywood songs on loop, turning the roads into an animated musical.

So those turned out to be some pretty lengthy descriptions. Now here comes the rapid-fire round.

• Men walk around holding hands (or just pinkies) because why wouldn't you express how close you are to the people around you? Those stupid stigmas you would find in the west, that frown upon showing affection for they people around you, thankfully don't exist.
• Facial hair, and lots of it. I'm talking perfectly sculpted curly moustaches galore. Or the carefully trimmed straight across kind that I am starting to think is an official part of the watchmen uniform cross-country.
• There is a festival to celebrate the cows and buffaloes and how much they do for farmers, in which they paint their horns lots of bright colours. So still these big animals meander through the city with bright red or blue bursting out of their heads.
• Bright pink turbans. Just walking through villages they are everywhere, and to the average westerner they seem like a huge contradiction (traditional...and bright pink?) but they are perfectly commonplace.
• Possibly the most characteristic Indian mannerism, which week by week will creep up on you until you become an irreversible convert- the Indian head bobble. Whether it is a sign of ascent or a friendly greeting, I dare you to come to India for more than a month and not find yourself head bobbling every once in a while.
• My parents will I'm sure remember with chagrin my childhood days when I would let go of all inhibitions and belch completely openly. Well I can now say I was just being multicultural, because the feeling towards burping here is much more relaxed.
• The majority of people drive motorcycles, not cars, so you frequently see motorbikes with guys holding bizarre things on back. One person is driving and the one in back is carrying a rolled up rug, giant picture frame, roll of cables, or a live goat. You name it, someone has found a way to transport that on the back of a bike.
• Standard male attire between ages 15 and 30: dress pants, flip flops, and some brightly coloured (often metallic) shirt, generally button down. Yes, it is a pile of contradictions.
• Every house in town is painted some bright colour like pink or turquoise. So you can tell exactly how old a building is by how far the paint has faded. Towns like Jalna become a sea of pastels with the occasional island of vividly fresh paint.
• While in the United States a child might get excited about seeing a dog walking in the street, animals of all kind are so commonplace throughout cities that there is no need. Dogs, cats, pigs, goats, cows, and water buffaloes wander around, at times halting traffic, and simply spend their days rifling through street-side garbage. The occasional camel or horse wouldn't even be that uncommon, and in bigger cities I have even seen elephants being led through the streets.
• If there is ever an accident on the road, somewhere between fifty and a hundred people will just flock to see what is going on. They have absolutely nothing to do with what happened, but they were either hanging out at chai shops, or have pulled their bikes to the side of the road simply out of curiosity. They look at the scene, talk amongst themselves, and create the most intense bottle-necking traffic possible.
• The smiles. In India, you encounter some of the most genuine smiles on the planet. Simply greeting people you may have never even met before might just make your day.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of the details of life here, but it gives you an idea of a couple of little things that I love about India. I don't think I will ever stop taking pleasure in all these little things, because no matter how long I am here, new things still seem to come up each day. And just as much as the big events from my time here, these are the things that I don't want to let normal life back home make me forget.