New Delhi and Old Delhi

Heritage Inn (guesthouse)

I’m finally here! I’m confused and don’t know where the guest house office is located (although I suspect it’s through the front door) and have several questions to ask but feel hesitant to cal the front desk, especially since I’ll likely have trouble understanding what they’re saying over the phone and they’ll probably have the same problem with my awful voice…but at least I made it to Delhi!

Several incidents have reminded me of Sarah MacDonald’s memoir Holy Cow. Like at the Doha Airport after we waited in line to get to the gate, we went down an escalator to a very small waiting room, and as the shuttle came to the open sliding glass door, the crows was anxiously pushing forward, and I was afraid I would be trampled. That was definitely a Holy Cow moment. As all these guys (most of the people were male, and just about all were Indian. On the other side of the door, a guy in a navy blue uniform was looking at each boarding pass stub before letting passengers get on the shuttle that would take us to the plane. One guy cut in front of me and held out his boarding pass, and the uniformed guy, who was stern and unsmiling and therefore a bit intimidating, told the guy who cut in front of me, “Wait your turn! Let the lady go first. Have some common courtesy.” I smiled at him and said, “Thanks!” He looked at my boarding pass stub and let me get on the first shuttle. I was almost the last person to get on it.
At the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi: More pushing and cutting in line at the money exchange place. Crazy. Again, only males did this, but it was a bunch of them! I must have waited there fifteen minutes. Finally an Indian guy urged me forward and told a guy to stop cutting in front, and he commented to me how they tend to do that. So I finally got my turn and I thanked the guy profusely. Really, I wanted to laugh.

There was another incident that reminded me of Holy Cow. The plane arrived in Delhi, and people were undoing their seatbelts and getting up and reaching for their luggage…while the “fasten seatbelts” light was still on. It started the very second the plane stopped moving, perhaps seconds beforehand, like people had springs in their bottoms and suddenly popped up.
OK, I called the office, and the phone was staticky and all, and the manager asked if he could come and talk to me in person, which was a relief. So he knows about the cat—12:30—he said I could even have a couple extra hours. They do have an Internet computer, and I can use it, but there’s no scanner and the fax machine doesn’t work—he commented that people don’t use fax machines so much, they’d rather use e-mail. Yes, I certainly prefer e-mail. I don’t know why Tandem, the company I work for, doesn’t ditch the fax machines and switch to scanners.

There’s I think an ashok tree right outside the open French window in my guest house room, but I’m not sure if that’s the right kind of tree. Long, very skinny leaves with ridges. I might have it confused with the sal tree, the kind under which the Buddha died.

The ride from the airport was interesting. I sat in the back seat of a white car, and I had trouble understanding the driver; he had a thick accent, or maybe it’s because I’ve only just gotten here and haven’t adjusted to Indian accents yet. And he had trouble understanding me. I have a speech impediment and after this journey I’m less coherent than usual. Dry mouth and all. I gawked and gawked at the scenery. It’s good to be back! The derelict, dingy buildings; the crazy honking traffic; the rickshaws and weird green motor rickshaws that look like something a little kid assembled in a shed; the pedestrians in bright salwar-kamiz or pale kurtas and pants (really, Indian women generally wear prettier clothing than men); the dogs lying on the sidewalks, even right outside the airport….

I saw plenty of apartment buildings with balconies, across which people had strung laundry to dry including towels of a wide variety of colors. I saw walls made of red brick plastered in white—and could tell there was brick underneath because the plaster had come off in places and exposed the brick. Before I noticed this, I assumed the walls were mud. We passed through the embassy neighborhood, like last year, and I noticed one building with lots of police and security vehicles, and we passed an intimidating police station. At some point, I saw behind a fence a mound with a soldier walking on top of it.

We turned a corner, and straight ahead was an elaborate red wall and behind it I saw an impressive red (sandstone?) structure with a huge dome. The driver said, “Do you know what that is?”
“Is it the Red Fort?” I asked dubiously.
“No, it’s the president’s house.”
“Wow! It’s gorgeous!” It makes the White House look like a ranch house. “I didn’t think it was old enough to be the Red Fort.”

It wasn’t long before we saw a high red stone wall with quite a bit of detail work, and beyond it was a huge red stone structure with elaborate little cupolas here and there, and the driver confirmed my suspicion by saying, “That is part of the Red Fort.” Soon we were going past a lot more of the Red Fort, which does indeed look much older than the president’s house, which can’t be more than two hundred years old (and I didn’t mention—the parliament house is near the president’s house, and though it’s Neoclassical it’s circular). Anyway, there was a white structure or series of structures along one wall of the Red Fort, with curving archways filled in with white grillwork. The walls around the Red Fort have curvaceous crenellations. It was all very Mughal-looking, which of course it is. And the red walls went on and on as we went through crazy traffic, and I stared open-mouthed.

When I thought of the Red Fort before the trip, I remembered the story about the emperor who fell down a flight of stairs and died, so I decided to walk mindfully around the Red Fort; it doesn’t look like I’ll have that opportunity. Much as I fantasize about living in India for a year or two, is that ever really going to happen?

Now I’m worried about getting to the Gandhi Smriti on time. The manager said he’d call when the computer’s up, but it’s a quarter after 12, and he confirmed with me that the cab would come at 12:30, if I don’t check my e-mail, that isn’t as important at this stage. I should have asked if someone would bring down my suitcase, and if I should be waiting out front for the cab. All these simple little things, and I just don’t have a clue.