Leisure Life

Today we were walked down the street to the Canadian Embassy mela, a fair for craftspeople to display their wares.  I thought it was generous of Craig to come along on what was obviously a shopping trip, but he was curious about the embassy, wanted to check out their tennis courts and such. The weather is starting to cool, and is even breezy sometimes, so a brisk walk can leave you feeling refreshed instead of melted. We happened to run into one of the embassy employees, a Newfoundlander who, as it turns out, has been restoring old English built Enfields. Needles to say, Craig's interest was piqued.  He has been eyeing the bike since our arrival, scouring the internet, and asking anyone he can about them.  They are uniquely well suited to India: not that they are so reliable, but every village has a mechanic who can fix whatever goes wrong for under two dollars, not-a-word-of-exaggeration. They hardly go above 100km/hr, which given the road conditions is about par. Bernie recognized the signs of a guy missing his tools and old machines, and promised to put him in contact with the right people, eh? There may be a bike on the horizon.  

 
My Saturday morning history class is becoming a nice routine of visiting nearly empty monuments with ''the ladies".  We are a diverse lot, but enjoy each other immensely.  One thing we have in common:  the increasingly sophisticated architecture erected by 'great men' in their own honor we regard with appropriate appreciation, but where we discover the unnamed tombs of the wives, we pause in thoughtful reveries about what it must've been like, married to these guys.  We picnic now, more than taking notes.


Sagar, our landlord, continues to be our 'uncle', overseeing the affairs of our household, perhaps a little too carefully, but always with kindest intentions.  He recently invited us to visit the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum, which was actually her home where she was shot in the back by her two Sikh bodyguards in 1984.  We are pictured in front of the garden pathway where the assassination occured. This incident set off a riotous revenge in the city, leaving more than 2500 Sikhs dead in the streets.  (These intermittent outbursts of intolerance punctuate long periods  of peaceful coexistence among the several religious groups throughout the centuries. But few days go by without some mention in the newspaper of how one group is being done wrong by the other in some corner of the country.) It's holiday time here, so the Sunday we chose to visit happened to be the day that south India emptied into tour buses to visit the capital, and the patriotic crowds swelled around us, carrying us through the museum like we were all segments of the same millipede,  warm and squishy, taking tiny but rapid steps in and around and through.  It was actually our first experience of 'crowded India' , as we've been quite judicious about entering such a fray.  It wasn't so unpleasant - people have such a ready sense of humor here.  I stepped on the toe of one withered gentleman who gestured  I should step on the other to achieve balance. 

About 10 km south of our apartment, as urban South Delhi starts petering off on the road to Agra (home of the Taj Mahal), rise these undulating walls of the ruined and forgotten city of Tuqhluqabad. Tuqhluq was one of those sultans who blinded the inheritor of that title in order to confiscate it himself, then was killed in turn by his own son for the same reason.  Delhi's history is peopled generously with these characters - they build their own tombs because they can't trust that their own sons will, and just because they can, they rebuild the 'capital' so they can name it for themselves. A generation later, this place too is abandoned, and from the mid-14th century til now, it has made great grazing grounds for a few goats and cows.   There are scores of ruins within the city limits that repeat this story.



The day we visited, a Saturday, there were less than ten other people there, and amongst these hardly history enthusiasts: a few youth dating away from prying eyes, and a couple of herders.  And the place was incredible: over 6 km of cobbled constructed walls on top of which you could gain an unobstructed 360 degree view.  The cavernous place pictured was the underground market, where according to Karin, our guide through Dehi's history, the harem ladies shopped for their gems and gold.  You can just make out the dark entrances on either side of the alley, where the small chambers are still wonderfully cool. 

In contrast to the utter neglect of poor Tuqhluk's abode, the tombs and gardens of the Lodi dynasty are gorgeously maintained.  This is in the heart of New Delhi, minutes from our home,  famous for being a place of serenity and excellent for making out.  Again,  this past Saturday, a workday for most Delhiwallahs, no lovers nor hardly even tourists were about.  Workers were scaling Muhamed Sayid's mid-15th century octagonal tomb on scaffolding of bamboo of seemingly questionable integrity, while the ladies in their richly colored saris carried crushed stones and water on their heads from across the grounds. 

We could scale them too: there are absolutely no signs telling you to 'watch your step', or 'off-limits', or 'Warning, the wall is crumbling and falling would mean certain death.'  

These buildings are approaching the beautiful proportions of the Taj Mahal, still 150 years away from construction. The Hindu influence is subtle: lotus and bells and column decoration. The filigree of Koranic verse on the interior dome ceilings and walls is gorgeously carved.  The splayed verandah of Sayid's tomb is a vision in the early morning light, when only the birds and a few joggers share the park. It's an oasis to come to regularly.

Festival time

Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen master recently nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, gave a beautiful talk on mindful living, then led a group of about 300 of us on a peace walk during the 2nd annual International Day of Peace on Delhi's Shantipath (Peace way).  We silently walked from in front of the famously grandiose edifices of the British Raj, now India's legislature and seat of government, to the equally ostentatious India Gate, below. Dusk brought hoards of huge bats, as big as pigeons flying just as steadily and more purposefully towards the eaves of the government complex.  I kept looking

up at this astounding phenomena, thousands of big fat bats with bulging bellies with clearly profiled vampire silhouettes. We were attempting to follow the lesson of our esteemed leader and achieve a meditative state, so that we could conjure the spirit of peace and communicate it to the world.  So I tried to ignore what looked to have been a scene made to order by Dr. Evil to thwart our efforts. I've come to learn that they  are the greater short-nosed fruit bat, such a common sight that for the families out for a family picnic and kite flying, they didn't warrent a glance.  It was the peaceniks they found to be the phenomena.  

Last Thursday marked the beginning of holiday season here.

Dussehera involves the burning of giant effigies of Ravana, the evil king who absconded with Sita, the wife of the good king Ram.  Good triumphs over evil, and miraculously none of the little kids setting off fireworks lose a limb.  Even more impressively, the 30 foot high sculptures I saw being burned didn't topple into the crowd.  These parties happen all over, in every neighborhood.  Deepa, our housekeeper, invited Evan and I to attend her neighborhood party, and gratefully we were settled on top of a six story apartment building overlooking this scene.  Otherwise we would have been part of the throngs I was sure would be cremated when these paper mache and metal framed structures collapsed. From up there, in every direction I could see fireworks and effigies being burned.  My Indian co-workers twittered at my telling the tale of imminent danger the next day:"Nothing ever happens.  People always just have fun." I've gotten used to lax safety standards, and even appreciate that I'm no longer admonished to 'keep from children', and 'wait for traffic light', but really, you should have seen this.  Even Evan watched with bated breath

 to inevitable carnage when the fireworks went bad, or the little barefoot kid didn't get away in time, or the breeze blew a swath of burning paper into the crowd.  But my friends were right - there must have been thousands upon thousands of these revels all over India last night, and today's paper was utterly mute about incidental victims.  
  

Delhi's difference

I sent Evan out to buy himself some new shoes and he came back with two goldfish.  Harriet has been here for a year (from England), so knew where to tell her driver to go. Teens travel effortlessly all over the city, safely and comfortably in private cars and cabs.  Like anywhere, the shops are where they congregate.
Shopping in Delhi is a varied experience.  No big box store monotony here.  Step into the street and buy furniture, fresh flowers, and vegetables.  
Or have the tailor come by and measure you for a custom made suit.  Craig struck up a conversation with this guy over their common interest in motorcycles: the next thing, he has a beautifully tailored kashmir suit.  Now my favorite blouses are being copied in my choice of  fabric.  We've had a teak rocker made (see behind Craig). So far we've resisted many enticements: gem and precious metal craftsman abound, as do beautifully hand-stitched linens, silver kitchenware, and many other trinkets I don't need.  

The tailor, Shafiq, learned his craft from his father, and he from his, and so on as far back as he knows.  Although the caste system has been officially dismantled since Independence, family professions very often persist through the ages.  The 7 and 8 year old children I see picking through the American Embassy garbage are following in their parents' footsteps, still barefoot.

Godvindpuri is an infamous slum in South Delhi whose residents' place in the social order has been fixed for eons.   Yet The Times of India has launched a program to try and elevate the aspirations of the children, called Teach India.  AES has a program with 42 young adolescents who come to our school each Friday afternoon for two hours to study.  They are the hardest working students I've ever known.  They politely and sincerely attend to every spoken word. They come in crisply ironed shirts and lap up every second of their lesson.  I am amazed at their memory retention and the swiftness with which they absorb new learning. It seems they could overcome the years of deprivation they've already experienced, given the opportunity.  Some have: stories appear regularly in the media - a famous actor, a senator. 

I'm learning that many privileged Indians, the ones I know, give generously of their time and resources, and there is a collective consciousness to raise everyone's status with India's rising star.  But wealth distribution is even more dramatically disparate than I could have imagined.  All around us in our posh neighborhood, the houses are undergoing renovations to become evermore luxurious.  The 110% customs duties on BMWs and other imported brands don't dissuade the thousands of millionaires who populate the many toni neighborhoods all over New Delhi.   Chic restaurants whose prices are as expensive as Europe are popping up every week.  Designer shops for clothing and furniture are proliferating.  I've travelled all over New Delhi now, discovering that in neighborhood after neighborhood, excessive wealth is just as characteristic and widespread as excessive poverty.