Delhi: Day 1

Today I woke up in India. We arrived in Delhi this morning around midnight and surprisingly defied all varieties of jet lag and woke up at 8 am (9 pm to our friends on the east coast.) We are in a beautiful hotel in New Delhi (the “old” and “new” seem to be defined by the strength of Western influence on the area.) After a short breakfast with butter and toast on one side and lentils and parathas on the other, we headed out with our guide Nijit who turned out to be quite the character. In the fog and bleary-eyed stupor of our arrival, we couldn’t see much beyond the borders of the streets. They are filled with cars (mostly small, compact things either in silver, white or taxis which are multicolored black, yellow and green.) Even these smaller vehicles have trouble weaving among the hundreds of motorcycles, cows, dogs, goats, pigs and the occasional camel. Lanes don’t really exist and a driver must always have one hand on the horn at all times. Along the major highways from the airport, the city largely resembles a work-in-progress with construction materials abandoned and barren expanses for miles where the homeless have encamped themselves for the night. As we entered Old Delhi towards our first stop of the day, most of the cars were replaced with even shabbier motorcycles and fearless bicyclists, narrow lanes and overhanging apartment buildings that looked as if they were stacked together by a drunken 5-year old. All the colors on the signs were faded and hundreds of tangled electric wires pass from poles over the alleys to the buildings. I began to wonder where Asia’s second largest economy fit into all this, until our guide told us that for 50 sq. ft. along these dirty, crowded streets cost anywhere from 100,000 - 500,000... in US dollars.

(Note: this will be a long entry - feel free to back out now.) Our first stop was Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India - an open courtyard at the top of a hill, separating the Moslem and Hindu areas of Old Delhi. Once we took off our shoes and put on some neon wraps straight out of Scooby Doo to make ourselves more presentable, Nijit pointed out that while hundreds of birds dotted the skies to our left, there were absolutely none on the right. On the left - Moslems eat cow, cow falls on the ground, birds eat cow. On the right - Hindus worship cow, no cow on ground, and so no birds. Just walking from one side of the mosque to the other was like being teleported - Hindi versus Arabic, black head scarves versus colorful saris. And all within spitting distance of one another. There were also oodles of pigeons - apparently they have given Nijit the inspiration to pioneer a pigeon racing/gambling tourist venture. Throughout the day he emphasized always how competitive India is - 13 million people live in Delhi alone, and if you can do something, chances are someone can do it better. That is why you must be original, and even then, originality won’t last long. “India, like China, is a great copier,” he said. “You show us something, we will take it and reproduce it here. Probably make it better.” As we were driving home, he said to us “if there is one thing you will learn here, it’s humility.”

After Jama Masjid, we passed the Red Fort and saw Rajghat, the cremation site of Mahatma Gandhi. Nijit was a one-stop shop for Indian history, and I’m ashamed to say I learned more history from him than anything I can remember from High School. Afterwards, we saw Humayun’s (one of the 6 Moghul emperors) Tomb - a grand palace surrounded by gardens that many say was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal. Finally, we saw Qutab Minar, site of the oldest mosque in India created in 1197 AD with a large tower to give calls to prayer. The site was covered with ancient Arabic scrawl and beautiful sandstone arches (and a few green parrots.) It was my favorite site by far - even though the ruins were incredibly old, everyone was allowed to just walk right up and touch everything. Many of the faces on the figures had been scratched out, but this was the work of the emperor who created the mosque. There was no available stone, so he simply plastered over the remains of destroyed Hindu temples, scrubbing out the faces to make it appropriate for Moslems.

So far India has not thrown me into the culture shock I anticipated. Granted, we have been shuffled and coddled the entire way (which is wonderful; we would be completely screwed without guidance.) It seems that most people here are used to white tourists jumbling around their streets in rickshaws, blocking traffic to snap photos. So far the most uncomfortable thing has been when sellers or children approach you, pushing their wares in your face or begging for money. Living in NYC has been great preparation, but still it feels terribly awkward and even shameful to refuse when you know you have the money in your pocket to pay $15 for a cheap necklace.

Tomorrow we catch a 6:20 plane to Jaipur (leaving the hotel at 4:30 in the morning!) where we continue on in our crazy Indian adventure. If you got this far without falling asleep, congratulations and thanks for following along!