Proud of my audacity - This morning I walked to the nearby Indian International Center (IIC)

for back to back showings of two older Indian films.  The walk was less pleasant than normal as the piles of excrement of unidentified origin were prolific and forced focus on my feet.  When I did manage to lift my gaze it was to notice that two new kinds of tree are flowering: one with a gentle white umbrella of blooms and the other with amazing powder puff pink and white exotic spheres.

When I turned onto Max Mueller Marg (where the IIC is) I fell into step behind a young man carrying a plastic bucket with what looked like chopped onion and lentils.  Curiosity increased with every step.   Max Mueller Marg is the location for all kinds of foundations and non-profits: World Wildlife Fund, Ford Foundation, Alliance Francaise, to name a few.  My young delivery man stopped to ask someone directions and then continued on.  Finally he met two others and I could catch up and get a good look at the bucket.  As it was broad daylight and there were passersby in full view I pulled out some small change and gesticulated that I'd like to photograph them.  They looked suitably distressed by the westerner flashing money about (albeit 20cent notes) and somewhat relieved when they realized I was interested in their buckets.  I hope you can spot the styrofoam dividers in the bucket separating chopped onions from cooked chickpeas, and something else I am not sure of.  One of the other boys had a similar bucket and the third chap had a large pot of tea with a stove.  There are no roadside stands on this street, so my guess is that some local kitchen hired out the chopping and just did the cooking themselves.  From the number of hot chili peppers in the bucket I'd guess that it was an Indian organization's kitchen.  I bought one tiny handful of those green chilis the first week we moved in and they are so hot that only Bert really enjoys them.  I fear tht my small handful will rot before I actually finish using them.

All 5 senses constantly stimulated - 

 

Seeing: Exquisite beauty of people, architecture, flowers, birds, sculpture, light playing through screens and leaves and the opposite extreme of desperate hovels and dirt ingrained in faces, hands, and feet, piles of garbage, deep unhappiness etched in some faces, anger in others, naked children playing beside their road-building parents, wealthy children being dropped at tennis in their chauffeur driven cars.

 

Feeling: cold a/c; hot dusty streets; crowds jostling; grainy texture of the Kashmiri pears, significant 'happening' in muscles being stretched in exercise class (instructor asks 'is anything happening in your hamstring?  Can you feel it?), vibrations of almost constant street traffic; bumps in the rickshaw; washing machine spinning as though ready for take off.

 

Hearing: blaring horns, the call to Muslim prayer, worship music flowing from the church next to our suite, birds, the sitar  and dulcimer players in the hotel foyer, water splashing gently in hotel fountain or running in the channels, beggars knocking on car window 'Madam, madam, baby, food', washing machine rattling in its spin cycle.

Tasting: curry (often just beyond my comfort zone!), pomegranates, sweet pears, delicious high tea offerings and the o so comfortable flavour of spaghetti and tomato sauce.

Smelling:  Exotic flowers (jasmine and tuber rose and roses), masala tea, curry, hot cooking oil, nauseating sewage, rotting meat, goats, dust and traffic exhaust, the swimming pool after the hot dusty outdoors.

Non-stop and sudden contrasts.

Putting the record straight - It has been gnawing at my conscience that my earliest rainfall blog was rubbish!  I don't know much about rain: it gets me wet, is good for the garden, can cause serious flooding. The numbers being thrown around when we arrived were a bit like the values of rupees (it all sounded like Monopoly to me).  So after making notes to myself for several weeks to look up hard data I went to the India Meteorological Department 'End of Season Report.' 

From the experts: The average rainfall for Central India is 991.5mm and apparently they had 1027.9mm this year.  43% of the country had more than average rain.

I was entertained that the end of season report congratulated itself repeatedly that its mathematical models ahead of time predicted rainfall accurately within the coefficient of variation (but the COV itself varied between 8-19).  I suspect these modelers may be related to some others of hockey stick fame.

Incidentally, the India Met also has an ambiguous address of Lodhi Road.  I wonder if they also have a non-existent meteorological museum at the same precise address.  Perhaps I will go hunting.

Glad to have got that off my chest.

Juntar Muntar -  Just south of Connaught Place is an extraordinary collection of buildings which measure the positions of various celestial bodies. From some angles the collection resembles a skate board park or something out of a science fiction novel, while the freedom the public has to clamber all over it also gives the impression that it is an over sized playground.  It was all built in 1710 by the Maharajh of Jaipur!!  I took the opportunity to use it as a backdrop for my Bollywood publicity shot.  As with all these great Indian historic sites, admission for Indian nationals is minimal and like all the parks this spot also provided a great place for courting couples to be in a public spot but out from the crowded space and watchful eyes of their families. You can tell all the courting couples - they are the ones holding hands.  I am not sure that married people exhibit any signs of affection in public.  I am very aware that Bert and I are an anomaly as we stroll hand in hand.  A retired man who used to work in the park offered us his guidance around the instruments and then intimated we would like to pay him "I would not suggest, but perhaps you would reward me." 

Heading north on foot out of Jantar Mantar, despite my Bollywood superstar disguise we were singled out for attention from a young man who was delegated to direct any likely suspects to the Indian craft shop that happened to be open on a Sunday and when we had profusely thanked him and headed in the opposite direction he followed us and then 'handed us off' to another young man who just happened to make the same suggestion about visiting the same  emporium, with wonderful directions, and then as we bumped back into the original chap he feigned shock "O hello!  What a surprise."  I was beginning to feel a bit like a scene out a Hitchcock movie and wondered whether it was only commission these fellows were after.

We hailed a rickshaw and sped away without negotiating a fair price (read=paid far too much - although Bert argues that he did us great service getting us into the church grounds and building) towards St. James church.  We skirted the incredibly congested narrow streets around Turkman gate and Bert snapped these two incongruous pictures.  What that little chap was doing in the middle of that vast junction on his bike with training wheels is truly a mystery (how Bert snapped at a moment when the junction wasn't log jammed is also extraordinary) and how that goat herd was getting forty winks on the side of a four/six-lane road is also beyond belief. 

St. James and the Yamuna- William Dalrymple's writing made me want to see St. James church north of the old city center.  It was built (1826-1836) in thanksgiving for surviving a military campaign by James Skinner, son of an Englishman and a noble Indian woman, who never was fully accepted by the British despite his brilliant military skills.  It lies, a lovely peaceful green oasis, in the midst of the Kashmiri Gate quarter which is dark and greasy with hundreds of motor parts shops.  The church and grounds were officially closed to visitors on Sunday afternoons but our tuktuk driver persuaded the gate keeper that we were harmless and we were able to enter.  I particularly enjoyed the gatekeeper's spare trousers drying on the strategically placed bush.

On our way home I asked if we could drive past the river as I haven't seen much of it.  It is hard to believe that a month ago this railway bridge was almost under water.  The monsoon changes the nature of the rivers drastically.  This picture only hints at the amount of garbage in the river.  As the rivers are venerated many things are dipped into it and dispatched into it and the last round of festivals caused logjams of floating images in several places.  I am not sure I could be persuaded to put a toe in the Yamuna.

Heavy shower - I came back to our hotel after a particularly exhausting afternoon at a craft bazaar showcasing Indian crafts and a trip to a shop my rickshaw driver wanted me to see* (hoping for commission on any sale I might make).  It was 4 p.m. and very muggy and dark.  As I strolled down the colonnade to our suite I thought 'if this were somewhere else I'd say it felt as though we were in for a storm.'  It grew darker,  then came lightning flashes and some thunder and then, gratifyingly, it poured and poured for about 30 minutes.  It seemed like good news to me - the dust was settled, the leaves looked fresh, all the plants got a watering and the air was cleared.  However, this gives the mosquitoes an extension of their breeding time - definitely not good, and there are masses of events planned for outdoors after the monsoon, so no doubt many folks were scrambling tonight with their sale goods exposed and dance troupes ready to perform on outdoor stages. . .

* I am the customer, yes, and I don't need to go anywhere I don't want to, yes! :)  However it is a little more complicated: it is really nice having a couple of rickshaw or taxi drivers who we can trust and who will look out for us - for instance when I don't have my body guards along for the adventure I like knowing that Mr. Singh expects me to show up and he would probably come looking for me because I haven't yet paid him. :)

Mr. Singh's mother died almost two weeks ago, so he hasn't been able to do business for a bit.  Last week Elaine and I got dropped at the local Khan market at 10:30 not realizing that most of the shops weren't open until 11.  An enterprising tuktuk driver happening by realized our mistake and immediately stopped and said he'd take us to an ATM and a chemist (the two items on our list).  Today as I strode off hoping to find a tuktuk an empty one drove by in the wrong direction on the other side of the median and five minutes later he was pulling up beside me.  It was THE SAME enterprising chap from Khan market!  and more uncanny he works with our Mr. Rangeet Singh and knew ALL about us.  Eek!  Those crazy westerners who live in that swank hotel who bought a carpet the first time Mr.Singh picked them up (very late wedding present for Bert's nephew - Bert managed to get it to Virginia, but still not yet to the nephew. :)).  Well Mr. Samanar clearly knows we are Mr. Singh's clients and Mr. Singh will be back on his beat very soon so it would be nice if we made a few more purchases before Mr. Singh takes the helm again, so wouldn't I like to see this shop?  OK, but I don't have much money with me today, so I will probably only be looking.  No problem, Madam, no money?  They bring to the hotel and you pay there.  Well, my husband and I have an agreement that I don't make any big purchases without him.  Very good.  Tomorrow holiday.  Your husband free?  :)  I have to admire them even if I do need a nap after every excursion.   I look forward to Mr. Singh's return: Mr Samanar takes the speed bumps too fast for his passengers. :)

Walking in Delhi - Our hotel is near a very big junction and sometimes at rush hour it is hard to pick up a rickshaw (tuktuk - pronounced took-took) and so I'll walk a block to a less frenzied corner to flag one down, or on occasion I am soooo tired of bargaining for everything that I cannot face the game of negotiating the fare (should I pay 50c or 75c when an Indian would probably only pay 40c?) that I just walk.  This week I think I needed to walk and ended up doing close to 4 or 5 miles during the early afternoon.  I wish I had had a camera- and will probably go back over the route with one.

In many places there is a good pedestrian path but people choose instead to walk in the congested street.  I have been trying to understand this and have the following hypotheses:
a) any piece of wall seems an invitation to the menial workers/tuktuk drivers to relieve themselves in broad daylight - thus the closer to the wall the more intense the smell;
b) dogs wander all over the place and are undiscriminating in where they leave their piles - however, they wouldn't dream of relieving themselves in the stream of traffic;
c) there are frequent (inexplicable) major excavations in the middle of the the pedestrian route;
d) some places have marble or tiled paths that could be treacherous; and
e) trees sprouting up in the middle of the path seem to get right of way - paving around them rather than digging them out.