D is for Delhi

Delhi is the third Asian capital city I've biked through, and it surprisingly felt like a big accomplishment when I arrived.  Part of the reason might have been the exciting last 20km into the city, with enough horns to make you go deaf and enough action to give you a seizure.  Strangely enough, not one vehicle came close to running a red light.  There is order in chaos.

I stayed on this "backpacker street" called Pahar Ganj where the price of a room was a third of what it had been the past few nights.  You know how a street in Toronto looks after a parade or a festival?  That's Pahar Ganj.  It was pretty central though, had lots of food options, and many Bob Marley towels for sale, which of course came as a relief.  From there I journeyed around the leafy green streets of New Delhi and the through the hectic bazaar of Old Delhi.  Also had a chance to visit the Ghandi Smriti (pronounced 'cemetery') and basically read an hour's worth of Ghandi quotes.  What a guy.  At one point, in the garden out back, I had to walk across the "Final Steps of Ghandhi" that are marked on the ground, and I was worried I'd be arrested or something for disrespecting the national hero.  Favourite quote: "I am prone to as many weaknesses as you are.  But I have seen the world.  I have lived in the world with my eyes open."

One evening I went to the Red Fort (the city's best known landmark) for the excitingly-titled "Sound and Light Show."  I arrived early, cheerfully bought my ticket, and then wandered into the deserted old fort and chose a spot at the front.  What a deal, I thought, only 50 rupees!  Maybe 6 or 7 other people wandered in, which seemed a little low.  When the show started it took about 5 seconds to realize I had made a terrible mistake.  I knew immediately why it was so cheap and so empty.  Sound and Light Show does not mean fireworks.  The lights were a few spotlights on the (admittedly, very nice) old architecture of the fort, but the sounds were a really cheesy narration with sound effects that described the history of the city.  So goofy.  I sat through the entire thing.  Sometimes I read a bunch of reviews for a place and then think I'm becoming too rigid a traveller, that I need to relax and just jump into things without any prep.  Not the case here.

Coming home after a Delhi-cious Murg Mussalman dinner another night, I wasn't in a rush so I opted for a cycle rickshaw, which is a bicycle with a rider named Rick attached to a small carriage for passengers.  Now maybe I'm a little starry-eyed, after several months of biking, from the novelty of having someone do the pedalling for me while I sit and watch, but a cycle-rickshaw ride at night was my favourite experience in Delhi.  You just sit there enjoying the fresh night air and shadows of the streetlights, and watch the world go by.  At the same time, you're part of that city portrait.  Your mind wanders.

It's on that cycle-rickshaw ride that I noticed the staggering number of people sleeping on the street.  I saw people just lying on a blanket on the sidewalk with barely any clothes or possessions, totally oblivious to the traffic noise.   And then I saw the little kids, curled up with their parents in a doorway, and was filled with sadness.  I've been confronted by poverty during my trip, but never on such a scale.  And never in such a pathetic state.  In Laos the villages were poor but at least the people had homes and neighbours and dignity.  Here, the large population of stray dogs is more active.  How is a child raised by parents living on the street ever going to have a chance at life?  How can anyone talk about India's progress when they've seen the streets of Delhi?  Indians are really proud when they describe their country, and they sneer when they compare it to China.  Well people aren't starving in China.  Not like this.  Maybe one day India will cut down on its gargantuan plush military and start doing something about its citizens, because the way they beg to us foreigners, it doesn't seem like the country is doing much for them right now.  I pay my guy double what we agreed on for the ride, and still he wants more.  A country should be able to take care of its people, especially during boomtimes.

The other sort of heavy thing arose while I was reading the newspaper this morning.  As you might have heard, a bomb went off outside Delhi's High Court a few days ago, killing a bunch of people.  There are posters up all over the city with pictures of the suspects.  According to the newspaper, restaurants and cinemas are empty because people are afraid to go out of their homes.  I never felt threatened during my short stay in the city, more annoyed at the number of security measures, but maybe I should have been.  I thought about all the police and military guarding the the city's iconic structures, the Parliamentary sites, and the lavish residences of the elite.  The thing about 'terrorism' is that the heads of state aren't in danger.  We are.  It's that random act coupled with being in the wrong symbolic place at the wrong symbolic time.  Police are searching hotels and the airport is on high alert but there's a horrible reality to the whole thing.  How do you stop random acts of killing in a city of millions?  For India, this isn't the first time and it won't be the last.  Man we're lucky that we can still walk around Queen's Park or take the subway without baggage scans and armed guards.

In other news, on page 5 next to all this terrorism stuff: police rescue a porcupine (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-14/delhi/30153550_1_porcupine-rescue-animal).  Indian newspapers are pretty funny.

Anyway, I'm out of Delhi and on the long scorching road to Jaipur.  The next week or so I will be in Rajasthan, the celebrated desert state of forts and conquerors and snake charmers.  Just before ending for the night I saw my first camel-pulled-cart so I have high hopes about where this will go.