Getting Out of Town

It wasn't pretty. After planning for this trip for eight years, the last few days were chaotic. The important thing is that I am now in New Delhi as the Bollywood music and honking horns coming in through the door of the Internet Cafe remind me. Actually, this is my second day here. I tried to write yesterday, but even a nap did not cancel out the evil effects of 22 hours in transit from Los Angeles to here. And even today, I am either still jet-lagged or coming down with a cold.

Yesterday, after coping with the fact that my luggage ended up somewhere other than where it was supposed to, I took a prepaid taxi to my hotel in Parahaganj. The Delhi airport is in the country, so as we started down the road (excellent even by U.S. standards), the first images are rural ones -- a solitary man walking across a field, people waiting for a bus at random spots along roadside, an oxcart carrying a load of women in saris, another solitary walking down the road. The solitary men are striking because in the city, there are so many people that even if someone is walking alone, he or she does not stand out. Then the traffic becomes more and more congested until a mile or so from the hotel it more or less stops. The hotel is near the New Delhi train station and there is a permanent traffic jam at its entrance.

I will move from Parahaganj soon. The air quality here is especially bad. Delhi seems to have worked on auto pollution. The air does not smell of raw exhaust as it used to. Here the bothersome pollution comes from dust -- once in town the quality of the roads is not as good and there are a lot of unpaved spots. What the cars and other vehicles don't lift into the air, feet and the ever-present sweepers do. Then there are the cooking fires. There are a lot of small restaurants and all have open fronts with the cooking done right next to the street. There are also a lot of carts that use bottled gas to cook with. And then there are the people cooking on the pavement, often with small charcoal fires. It smells great, but there is always smoke in the air. Finally, right by the hotel there are artisans carving wood and stone and doing other crafts that put particles into the air. A lot of people have coughs. My throat has been raw and my eyes have been watering since I arrived -- I might be cold (just before I left I spent a lot of time with my coughing granddaughter hiding under a blanket from the mommy and daddy monsters--not too smart for someone about to travel, but a lot of fun), but I am also blaming it on the air.

Except for the air, I love the area. It's a great introduction to India. There are two streets lined with hotels and once you leave them and enter the alleys, most traces of us tourists disappear. Cows wander, people work and stand around. In India, whenever anyone is working there are always extra people standing around. At the hotel, I will give a request to the person who looks to me like they are in charge, and he will reply and then turn to someone else who will do something and then a third person steps in and they all speak Hindi for a while and sometimes even a fourth person arrives before what ever is supposed to happen happens.

I haven't done any serious sightseeing. Yesterday, after I checked into the hotel, I went out and ate at one of the open-front restaurants and then napped and in the evening walked to Connaught Circle, a large colonial-era shopping and business development, and then found Kwality. When I was in Calcutta eight years ago, the Kwality there was my refuge when India overwhelmed me, so last night, I sought refuge again. According to the menu, Kwality was founded in the late forties to provide "rich Americans" and other travelers with ice cream and other sweets. Now its menu is very large with both Indian and international standards and caters to middle-class Indians and tourists. The food isn't exciting but it is good and I like the atmosphere. The restaurant in Delhi is a relic of the fifties with elaborate mirrors, botanical prints, pastel fabric wall covering and Hollywood moderne molded ceilings. Lana Turner would feel at home. Once you enter, the staff feels obliged to seat you immediately, so you might sit in two different places before the seating they think appropriate for you is open. I don't understand the system. I just meekly move from place to place until a waiter comes to take my order and then I know I've finally arrived.

I had minced chicken kabobs and naan and soda water with lime juice, nimbu pani, I think. It's my favorite. I asked for mine salty, but it came sweet. The Sikh man across from me had ordered one too and I think he got mine because he made a face when he tasted it, but neither of us complained to the waiter.

For breakfast this morning I had a small defeat and ordered room service. I had seen a place last night that served idli sambar, a delicious south India breakfast of ground rice and lentils shaped and steamed into a large, snowy ball served with spicy condiments. Another favorite, but I couldn't face the street without food (a real dilema, so I order a banana lassi, but got two bananas on a tray instead. I also had an omelet and delicious milk coffee with cardamom. The tea I had at the open-front restaurant was also great and today I had another very good tea. I had lunch at a tourist restaurant nearby, filled with Indian tourists (I'm trying out one of all the eating options around here). I had chicken in a mustard green puree which was good, but the best was again the tea which was made with steamed milk and flavored with cardamom. It didn't quite match the tea from the day before, but it came close.

I thought I was going to write sociology, but instead I am writing about food. Tomorrow I have to go to the airport and retrieve my suitcase which was misdirected. Then I will do my two tasks. When I travel by myself, I give myself two tasks a day to keep me focused and moving. Today I figured out how to use the subway. The subway has only been open for a year or so and I was not the only first-timer. I have a card that is good for a year. When I run out of rupees on it, I buy more. Then when I am ready to leave, I can turn it in and get my 100 rupee deposit back. There are a little more than 40 rupees to the dollar so I have about $2.50 waiting for me when I get ready to leave. My second task today was to figure out how to get my pictures from my camera to my laptop. I succeeded, but then forgot my notebook in the camera store and got lost. The store was in Connaught Circle which is, of course, circular, and very confusing. I had almost given up hope when a persistant tout of about 12 years old steered me to a tourist office, and there, next door was my camera shop. I went into the tourist office so the tout could get his reward, talked briefly to the staff, then left and retrieved my notebook.

Tomorrow my two tasks (getting my suitcase doesn't count) are to find a calendar of what's going on in Delhi and start to explore Old Delhi. Now, I am going to find something soothing to eat and go to bed early and try to cure my jet lag, pollution cough, cold or whatever it is.