My sedentary life of late began with the necessity to sit in front of my computer and write papers for my classes, and ended with the distractions brought on by my obsession with an HBO show about vampires of the Louisiana backwoods that I watch online. Somewhere in between my mother almost successfully persuaded me to join her in a virtual farming game on Facebook, because she needed help with her dairy farm or some aubergines or the like, and I knew it was time for this all to end. So today on my oh-so-free Tuesday, nine days before I skip back to the planet from whence I came, aka America, I took on the mission of exploring the sites of Delhi I still had left to discover.
I woke up at 8am, not an easy feat for someone who is gradually turning as nocturnal as those aforementioned cable TV vamps. One hour on the metro, one short rickshaw ride later and I was at Purana Qila, or Old Fort. It was built 500 years ago at the site of Delhi's oldest city and the setting for the Mahabharata epic, Indraprastha. It took me a few minutes and more than a bit of sweet talking in Hindi but thanks to my student visa I snagged the Indian price entry ticket (93 rupees saved - I take pride in these little victories).
I walked through the huge "Bara Darwaza" entry gate into the mass of enclosed lawns behind it. At first glance it seemed more like a park than a fort, except surrounded on all sides by 18ft high, crumbling walls. The whole plot is also situated on a natural high point in the city, which affords great views of the rest of Delhi - considering that you are in fact facing East and looking out onto Humayun's Tomb and not the industrial power plant that lies to the West.
There was a mosque there, called the 'Qila-i-Kuhna Masjid.' It was the first Indo-Islamic structure to be constructed predominately from red sandstone and inlaid with white marble - a technique seen at the Taj Mahal. Oops, there goes Art History class in my head again. I just turned in my paper. Anyway, the other structure I came across was the 'Sher Mahal,' some sort of octagonal chamber built by Shah whats-his-face when he captured the empire from the Mughal Emperor Humayun. Hum regained the throne in 1555 and used Shah's fancy chamber as a library. He died a year later after taking a "mortal fall" down the steps there. Kind of an embarrassingly clumsy way for an emperor to go if you ask me. Shouldn't he have been impaled in battle or fallen victim to his son's betrayal by getting poisoned or fed to the crocodiles they kept in the moat? In another one of my important ponderings on ancient Indian architecture, I've decided that the name Purana Qila is very close to 'Piranha Killaaa,' which shall henceforth be my fantasy emcee name. Anyway, moving on...
Purana Qila is maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India, as signs everywhere point out. But the only people I saw doing any of the maintenance and excavation work were a bunch of lower caste road workers. The parents dig up dirt and cart it around in baskets on their heads as their half-naked children lie on blankets in the dust nearby. The kids' English vocabulary already consists of the three words they'll need to get through life: "Hellooooo," "Byeeeee," and "Money! Money! Money!" As insensitive as I may come across here, the thought of beggars bothers me a lot less than now than it used to. There's no point in playing the blame game for what drives people to beg. Even chastising the caste system plays into that vicious circle, and letting yourself feel guilty because of their situation does too. I only feel real annoyance and shame at the shallow pocketed attitudes of some of the people I know when lately our ability to let go and accept the harsh end of a bargain seems to be dwindling since we've been here for so long. So I gave the little kids some change, after they posed like Charlie's Angels for my camera, of course.
I hobbled out of Purana Qila because my beautiful new embroidered Punjabi jutti had given me some very ugly blisters. Hmmm perfect excuse, I mean opportunity, to go do some shopping at Sarojni Nagar, the cheapest of the cheap among Delhi's shopping districts. On the way, as my auto flew down a freeway flyover, we passed within inches of three elephants who had their front feet balanced on the barricade, pulling stray branches from trees that hung over the road. It reminded me of living in South Africa and passing by bands of monkeys stealing bananas from fruit trucks on the side of the highway. Sometimes animals and people can live together, if not in harmony then at least in some habitable chaos for all. So I bought some new shoes at Sarojni and reveled in my power as a bargaining customer - in some situations it is actually ok to stick to your frugal guns, especially if you can get a counterfeit Camaieau top for R100 out of it...
I took a detour on the way home from turning in my Art History paper at the National Museum and went to a swanky area for expats and foreigners called Khan Market. It was so clean and lovely, and there was an actual cafe and bookstore there, I got so excited I just milled amidst the books for a bit, eating bruschetta and feeling metropolitan as I sipped my cappuccino. A framed quote was hung above my table: "From food are born all creatures which live upon food and after death return to food. Food is the chief of all things. It is therefore said to be the medicine of all diseases of the body" - Upanishads, 500 BC. Amen.
Down on the street I found more havens for my food addiction - supermarkets. I haven't been in a supermarket since June, I swear I almost wet my pants with delight. You'll have to forgive my vulgarity, but they had prosciutto. As I stood at the checkout line with my freshly baked ciabatta roll and a tub of buffalo mozzarella, I began to wonder what sort of alternate universe, black hole, or some other physics-defying phenomenon existed there at Khan Market in the middle of my dirty city. That was the moment I actually discovered that a whole different world opens up to you in India when you have the means to live in a South Delhi sky rise, and all of the ant-sized commotion down on the street or outside of your air-conditioned car is just the background noise to a Bollywood-music-number-themed life. Honestly, how much more multi-faceted and contradictory can this place get?
My day ended with a pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea amongst friends at an American bar called Blues. We sang nostalgically to tunes that hit their height of popularity around the time of my 8th grade dance, our voices becoming louder and more discordant with every refilled glass. It's funny to think of the worlds you can pass between just a few stops down the metro line; some ancient ruins, a bustling bazaar, a European cafe and an American jazz bar. It's also a good comfort to know that at the end of the day you've got friends who'll sit and drink with you and remind you of that other world you all left when you jumped on a plane five months back.
Another day in Delhi, another pair of shoes I can't wear. Oh well, even if my feet can't stand up to the city, at least I know I can.
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