Delhi and The Indian People

Okay, it’s official. Disasters that are globally news worthy are actually following me around... First there was the awful event in Phnom Penh, now most of the places I stayed in Australia are under water and it’s just been announced on the global news that it’s so cold here people are dying in Northern India and lighting fires on the streets of Delhi. And indeed, you can’t walk down a street without a number of men crouching low around a hazardous pile of flaming kindling (one man actually lit one at his feet in the Restaurant where we were eating) and people appear to be wearing all their clothes at once… I certainly am. (I have also had to buy a very, thick fleece jacket, gloves and ear warmers). I didn’t anticipate anything like this. I have clothes made for a hot stint in Cambodia, for sunbathing on the Thailand islands (which incidentally were also flooded – although I am unsure if this made global news) and strolling along Bondi Beach. I wasn’t expecting to be running from fire to fire or crouching low in front of a 250 Rupee-extra broken heater wrapped up in several blankets, still shivering. And that’s when the power isn’t failing.

The power fails a lot (right now I am writing this in the dark!). It seems as well that I cannot enter a country without having a little drama. In Cambodia I had a mini breakdown on arrival because I didn’t realize I would be teaching English. In Thailand I couldn’t walk because my foot was so swollen I had to hobble from the plane to the hotel and stay there in pain with medicines and bandages. And in Australia I entered the country with no money, no bankcards and no mobile phone. I arrived in India, at 4am on New Years Day, at a pitch black hotel, down a dodgy dirty back street, with no explanation in English of why there was no power and no light to see a thing. In the dark the place looked very dodgy and AWFUL!

And it’s no wonder the power keeps failing. Delhi is home to more than 13 million people and you feel it. Everywhere you walk there are thousands of bodies. I have never been anywhere more populated, nor will I ever (I think) see anywhere quite as populated again. A mash up of crazy traffic, workers, random wild cows, dogs and pigs choke every street. Life is so fast, everyone is moving and everything is utterly INSANE. I want to photograph everything but in reality as soon as I see something to capture it is over. I want to stand on the street and watch the passers by but I am about to get knocked over by a woman carrying ten tons of flour bags on her head, or the mad Tuk Tuk driver with the family of twelve hanging off the back. (Or the crazy cow – you can’t touch them because they are sacred creatures so you just have to dodge well out of the way!). It makes the streets of London seem comparatively tame and boring.

The Hotel Rak (in the Paharanjin area) was in fact (in the light of day) not half as bad as how it looked in the dark. It does need painting and it’s pretty fading and basic (hot water lasts about ninety seconds after you request it) but what it lacks in style it makes up for in charm, through the guys who run it and it’s roof top terrace. The terrace looks out over the bustling street below and across the tumble down rooftops around it. Kids make japaits behind the wall below from 6am everyday. The boys here make a fire on the roof and travellers huddle round. Another traveler is playing a guitar and someone is always on hand with coffee or (under their breath) the promise of beers.

This huge amount of people must create the haze that surrounds the city. The sky is very white. A picturesque green field of boys playing cricket is in fact just a white haze with coloured jumpers darting around it. I actually quite like this. It makes everything feel rather “other worldly”. I couldn’t live in it though. Signs litter the roadways advertising “Road Safety Week” and this makes me laugh. Vietnam takes the very crazy roads of Cambodia, Loas and Thailand to a whole new level…but then India takes Vietnam’s levels of death defying driving and throws in hundreds more people, cattle, dogs, motor bikes, Tuk Tuks, cars and Cyclos just for fun.

In Delhi I visited the magnificent Red Fort, Parliament, India Gate, Humayun’s Tomb and various mosques and Temples, Jama Masjid and Lakshmi Narayan Temple among others. I also visited Raj Ghat where Ghandi was cremated and the Ghandi Museum, built on the spot where he was assassinated (I am reading his autobiography at the moment). What I was really fascinated with was in Old Delhi. Chandni Chowk, which has an amazing street market on a Sunday, was a street crammed with people and life like I had never seen before. Traffic grid locked, people shouting (because they had to) and rushing past with huge amounts balanced on their heads, shop keepers, food sellers all going about their everyday lives. I wonder what the people of the one-horse Australian towns would say if they could see this quite ordinary (to the Indian people) pandemonium.

It seems I attract rather a lot of attention in Delhi (and Agra). I get stared at A LOT. People often ask for my photograph. Families, even in tourist spots, ask if they can have a photograph taken of me with their children. (This even happened in the Taj Malhal, in Agra where there are more European tourists - photos to follow of Taj Malhal, very impressive and beautiful). Maybe they think I am someone I’m not? It’s certainly a taste of what it would be like to be semi-famous. I find it weird, and it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. It’s even more uncomfortable when it’s a group of men blatantly discussing you or a group of stern looking soldiers holding guns and big, wooden sticks following you with unblinking eyes. There are not that many white people here; most of the tourists are Indian travellers or Asian. But the people are very nice about it and the Indian people do fascinate me too. I often photograph them; the colourful dress looks so stunning against the white marble temples or the grey smog. So I can’t complain if the fascination is mutual! We had no language to speak but two girls were in awe, pointing to my eyes and commenting on my “longness”, while I was pointing at their beautiful saris and gold jewellery, completely transfixed. We were the exact same though, laughing at the same things…we were just set against a completely different backdrop.

It feels like I’ve been in India for ten years now, when in reality it has only been a week. Kate and Ryan meet me in a few days to travel the last five weeks with me. My Dad is traveling for a short time to see a friend he made last time he was in India, two years ago. Another friend told me before I arrived here: one minute you will love India and then the next second you will hate it. This is so true. I do love India. I love the complete insaneness of it. I love the back street markets and the wailing calls to pray, which echo over the white haze. I love the beautiful women and all the little kids who break your heart with their matted hair and dirty faces. It should be illegal for food to be as good as some of the Indian curries and also for some of the dresses and markets to be this pretty. But things do happen in India to switch my affections very quickly.

We encountered “The Tourist Office Scam” on our first day and I pretty much guarantee all travellers to India will have come across this one. It was ingenious because it involved three levels. The first was early on, a guy who was seemingly minding his own business saw us consulting a map and planted the seed of the government tourist office where we could get a free map. Then later on, nearer the direction the first guy had pointed out, another man comes on the scene and talks to us and eventually leads us into the “official government tourist office”, which was of course just a random set up office. And these are all over the place with what seems like hundreds of guys deployed to divert you off the track of the real one and into the arms of the fakers. Throw in the Tuk Tuk drivers (and seemingly everyone you meet on the street) having some sort of motive for getting you somewhere and it can seem impossible to get to the right place.

In Connaught Place the hassle from the Tourist Office scam is especially bad (probably because a lot of tourists populate here). We went into a coffee shop just to shake off the CONSTANT hassle and still got targeted whilst inside, only by older and better-disguised versions of what was outside. It is also very tiring being asked to give money for everything, from someone handing you a napkin, to opening a door for you. I am particularly awkward with this; never having the right change or knowing how much (if anything) is appropriate. Throw in beggers and VERY persistent sellers, Tuk Tuk drivers trying to take you anywhere other than where you want to go (because they get commission), and people ripping you off left, right and centre and it can be utterly exhausting. (I watched a girl from the roof terrace get very skilfully mugged by the oldest woman I ever saw falling in front of the girl’s path). To be white is to walk around with a big dollar sign attached to your forehead, but at some point you have to be able to trust someone. The scammers trade on charm and it’s often hard to be rude. In the end all this will only serve to damage tourism. The word will continue to get out in guidebooks and amongst travellers, people will be a lot more wary, travel in packs and be more untrusting of locals.

But this is a huge shame! I don’t want to be sceptical of every Indian man who asks where I am from, where am I going or how am I finding India. Or any boy with his slicked back hair, hands in leather pockets who simply wants to practice his English. When you get off the tourist tracks the locals are often so friendly and lovely that it immediately cancels out all the obscenities you were muttering in your mind a moment ago. The children are so beautiful and the ones who beg or sell very often break my heart with their charm, wit and humour. They are incredible human beings (way too street smart!). One boy I was talking to was promptly chased away and kicked to the floor by a man with a stick just for hassling me, even though I did not mind him at all. I saw him later and he seemed unfazed by his assault. (I already have about fifty Cambodian children I think about everyday and don’t know how to handle anymore!) And some of the young men selling things are so charming and good looking it’s hard not to get caught up talking, even with no intention of buying. As much as I don’t like the attention, a positive aspect of being a tourist who does stick out is the keenness of people wanting to talk to me. And people here are so very nice!

And so the cycle continues…Someone scams you, and the next minute another restores your faith in all humanity, just for it to be pulled apart ten minutes later by a third. The scammers show a true entrepreneurial side of this growing economy. A hell of a lot of people are actively out on the streets of Delhi, whether it be called stalking, selling, begging, drumming up business or whatever, all after the same result: MONEY. And I can’t help thinking, what would Gandhi have to say about all this? Maybe I’ll ask that to the next guy trying his luck… “What would Gandhij do?”