Dec 172013
November/December 2013
There are many books out there about India. These are ones I highly recommend if you are planning traveling in the area. These are not travel books, those are a dime a dozen, these books are about the history, the economy and the culture.
Maximum City by Suketu Mehta
City of Djinns by William Dalrymple
Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann
India by Shashi Tharoor
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
M.S. Oberoi by Bachi J. Karkaria
Namaste
Getting to India from California is brutal. We went west so you have an eleven and ½ hour plane to Tokyo, a two hour layover and then a ten and ½ hour flight to Delhi. It is the same difference going east, but with the winter storms we were grateful we had chosen the path we did.
We arrived at midnight, not really even quite sure what day it was, since you cross the International Date Line along the way. The trip is about 45 minutes from the airport to our hotel, and I will admit I have absolutely no idea what time we finally got to bed.
The interesting thing is you would have thought we could breeze into town, but the roadways were as crowded at two in the morning as mid day. The reason for this is that large trucks are not allowed into Delhi during the day so all the things that they would haul into a town of 16 million people is done during the night.
(16 Million is the official number of residents, the unofficial number is closer to 20 million).
(16 Million is the official number of residents, the unofficial number is closer to 20 million).
We don’t join our tour group until Sunday, so we have today and tomorrow on our own. I wanted to see Old Delhi, so off we went. We hired a driver that took us to the edge of Old Delhi, then we hired a bicycle rickshaw to take us into town. No cars are allowed in that section of town, called Shajahanabad.
Shajahanabad was Delhi’s seventh city. It was built between 1638 and 1649 by Shah Jaban. There were seven cities of Delhi. Each was a fort erected by a powerful Sultan, and these cities were comprised of the settlements that grew around these forts.
The streets are narrow, and I was glad you couldn’t get a cab in. It was nerve racking enough being in a rickshaw, with all the motorcycles, tuk-tuks and other rickshaws, both motor and bicycle.
A side note here; Traffic in India is as frightening as you read. The lines on the roads I swear, are only painted there for the sake of giving line painters a job. However, there is order. Working vehicles have the right of way, and the larger the vehicle, the higher they are on the totem pole. That being said, going down the street the wrong way is common, playing chicken at intersections is de rigueur and incessant honking is mandatory. The drivers are the most nimble of people, the dodging and weaving is done with the skill of a fine dancer but that doesn’t mean my heart wasn’t in my throat and believe me, I closed my eyes several times.
So, back to Old Delhi. We first visited Jami Masjid, India’s largest mosque. Built in 1656 it can accommodate up to 20,000 worshipers.
The mosque is made of red sandstone and white marble, making for a gorgeous structure. The Red Fort, also made of this red sandstone was another stop today. It is HUGE, with an impressive history, but what probably is most interesting is this is where the Peacock Throne (embedded with priceless stones) and the Koh-i-Nor both were from until they were looted in 1739.
We also visited a small area of the spice market. I think both Mom and I would have liked to have spent considerable more time, our Rickshaw driver didn’t quite seem to understand. I have a feeling that adventurous tourists are not that common, our driver really was completely confused when we wanted off the bike to explore. Our desire for wandering on your own would have been difficult, getting lost would be quite simple as the streets are so crowded and there is no such thing as a street sign. We even mentioned we might need to tie a string between us so we didn’t get lost from each other, that is how crowded it is.
In the market area we saw several Brahma bulls pulling carts, as well as, a shrouded corpse being taken for burial. The shroud was covered in flowers and dusted with a pink powder, sadly they were going right as we were going left, and I had no time for a photo.
It is impossible to explain the overwhelming sea of humanity. It is wall to wall people darting around animals, goods, carts, and general detritus that comes from a market that serves millions. There literally was never a time when something wasn’t flashing in front of us, be it human, vehicle or a large stack of goods. I got some superb photos, but I do not know how, it seemed to me that every time I raised my camera something or someone stepped in front of it. Having looked at my photos, you still don’t get the sense of what I am trying to convey. I think that it needs the sound of constant blaring horns honking, the yelling of vendors and the sound of wall to wall muffler-less vehicles to give you even an inkling of the insanity.
Delhi is huge and sprawling. There is no continuity to it at all, it is as if people just move in and occupy what is available. I have read that since the great partition in 1947 the people have no sense of their history. This feels very true. In Old Delhi, the beautiful older buildings house shops that feel as though someone opened the front door and as many shopkeepers that could crowded into the space. I saw goods stacked in every space available, inside of what were most likely fabulous mansions in their day. Many buildings are falling down, and yet occupied at the same time. It is difficult to figure out where yesterday left off and today started, as everything is a mish mash, built catch as catch can with no thought to what the original intent was nor thought to what might be needed in the space tomorrow.