A circus an Ethiopian and a diplomatic crisis averted
Day two started poorly. I woke up early bc I dozed off quite early the night before. After initial disorientation I crept out of bed and showered in nice warm water. Breakfast was poor to say the least. Some dicey looking sausages, something fried and potatoesque (no, not chips) and some hodi thing was all I took. I went upstairs to sort out registration and witnessed what was almost a diplomatic crisis. A Pakistani chap had been invited for this and he had been told to pay $100 for registration but at the desk they insisted on $150. The guy quietly sat down, and started punching something into his phone, and a few minutes later stood up and made his way to the door. One of the organizers stopped him and the Pakistani said that he has just informed his government about his treatment and that he has been summoned back by his minister and an official complaint will be made to the Indian PM! Drama drama. The Indian organizer did his utmost to quell the situation and eventually managed to convince the Pakistani to tell his minister that a miscommunication had occured and that its all good now. There were some good speeches in the morning, but the afternoon carried little of interest so I took off to explore. One of the locals I met at the conference gave me a short list of where to go and what to do if I find the time.
I thought the best place to start would be Connaught Circus, it sounded lively and central. So I caught a three wheeler soon as I stepped out of the hotel and we were off for 40 bucks, a pretty good rate. The drive was very pleasant, I passed some lovely architecture on the way since the root bypasses the main administrative area in Delhi including the parliament house, the wonderfully designed Rashtrapati Bhavan - what the President calls home - with the Indian flag fluttering at its peak, I saw India Gate in the distance as well. The roads at the time were uncongested, spacious and generally very pleasant. As we were getting close I noticed the taxi metre reading Rs.400 and got a shock bc the driver had just showed me four fingers and muttered something which I assumed to be 40. Happily enough it was indeed 40 as I got off and started to walk. My first impressions were of disappointment, this place just seemed to be a random road with a bunch of ppl walking around in the heat. I walked around and wanted to ask someone if this is actually Connaught place, and then I crossed the road saw a few more shops and ppl selling things on the street, it looked more like a market area. It began to grow on me though there wasn’t much to write home about as yet, I walked into a few book shops and in one I found William Dalrymple’s City of Djins, which was about his year in Delhi, I was very tempted to buy it but thought I should get it from SL and conserve the few Indian rupees I had. It took me a while to realise what Connaught place actually was. I seemed to be walking through long curved corridors lined with shops, intersperced by roads radiating inwards towards some central point. As i kept walking it became apparent that Connaught place was like some giant round-about in the Centre of Delhi, there was a road all around it, and roads going through it as well, but it was one big market place in the middle.
With time I began to really like this place, I loved all the little street book sellers and stopped at every one of them squatting over the books looking for one of those gems you sometimes find at such stores, I almost walked away with a copy of Kautilya’s political writings, Asia’s equivalent of Machiavelli’s Prince. The food and drink on offer on the road was tempting as well. The little Lemonade sellers were all over the place, it’s made fresh then and there but the water source looked dubious to say the least. There were ppl selling colourful food stuff, something that looked like yellow lentils lined with green curry leaves and bright red chillies looked and smelled particularly enticing. The smells. An amazing thing about Connaught place and Delhi as a whole is the variety of different smells. At each corner a different smell wafts into your nostrils, incense, food, chai, urine, sweat and different combinations thereof. The colours too are full of variety, the buildings themselves have a sameness about them, the TGIFridays shares the same kind of background wall as the little dude selling fake Habana cigars, a dirty white which rises a couple of floors and hasn’t been painted since the British Raj. But everything else is full of colour and vibrance, the women selling multicoloured carpets and cushion covers screaming in purple, orange, wonderful shades of red, the sari shops with hundreds of materials waving all over,the guys selling art and posters on the ground and of course all the colourful food. Everyone was drinking chai, in glass mugs, in tiny plastic cups and from cellophane bags with straws. Everyone is chattering, radios blaring, horns battling it out on the road, it’s all one big cacophony. I began to love it.
There are so many different shops on Connaught Circus, every single Western brand is represented, and between these a range of local stores making their mark, be it the local hair dressers, cafes, small book stores, antique shops, arts and crafts, banks, airline offices, everything imaginable. They all fit to the same template on the exterior, but inside one would have airconditioning and wall legnth posters of Caucasian models, whilst another would have a couple of creaking ceiling fans and a little shrine with incense and the Lord Shiva looking on. The maze of roads running through Connaught Place are also lined with shops, and I allowed myself to get lost in this maze, making random turns and paying no regard to my bearings. There are so many different ppl roaming the area, from yuppies in Rbk and La Coste to street sweepers in dull saris, nose rings and anklets signifying their caste. Everyone assumed I was Indian and spoke to me in Hindi. “Hindi nehi” became my favourite phrase, but most ppl ignored it and continued to speak in Hindi until I just had to give up and walk off.
I hadn’t bought anything at all but I was getting increasingly thirsty. I had a bit of a dilemma. I refused to come all the way to Delhi and have a coffee at a Costa or a bite from the local KFC, but I was also nervous about eating from a random joint in case Delhi belly comes to the party. In order to buy some time I stopped and bought a litre of mineral water, which I finished in a couple of minutes. I had been too excited and curious about this place to realise how oppressive the heat was, it’s less humid than Colombo but it’s hotter and there’s almost no breeze at all. I walked around some more and decided to get something to take home, ammi loves these Indian bags so I sat down at one of the pavement shops and started to sift through a whole bunch of them. The girl running the shop must have been around my age, she was pretty and charming, dressed in an old sari. I was pleasantly surprised when she spoke to me in English following my Hindi Nehi petition. She was an excellent salesperson, despite criticizing my own choices as antique style despite my being a “modern boy” (but she shrugged and said “maybe antique but if you like sir, then it is your choice”), she did however try her best to improve my taste by suggesting slightly louder pink and yellow options. Her brother joined us in a bit and the three of us giggled a fair deal over our differences in taste. I brought two bags for 200 each, a bit of a rip off, but I don’t have too many issues with extortion in order to feed one’s family as long as I feel that I value the item enough to pay that amount. The girl and boy told me to tell my friends to come to their store, that I am a good customer and that I was the only one who bought anything for the day. I said that I will tell my friends, though they might find it a bit difficult to locate at first, we then summoned our respective Gods to bless one another and I went off.
My hunger caught up with me and I walked into the next non-chain (I think) I found, a coffee house/restaurant called United Coffee house (or something). I ordered a snack of tandoor chaat and a masala chaai. The food was lovely, rich in spices and had a generous helping of corriander which is always going to put a silly grin on my face. The masala chaai was wonderful as ever, strong, full and rich. The combination was perfect, nothing like hot tea and spicey food. I rested for a few minutes, half an eye going through the pictures I had taken and half an eye on the guy in national kit who kept staring at me. When I walked out of the coffee house I stepped into a different world. The lights had come on, there was more music, more ppl, more buzz, new colours, new voices, new life. I was trying to take a photograph of a shoe shiner at work when this little kid kept jumping in front of the camera wanting to be in the shot, at the same time his little brother, half dead puppy in one arm, tugged my shirt with his free hand, asking for either some change or my camera. I decided that it was time to leave and began to wander off when I ran into some amazing paintings on the pavement, the type where you need three separate pictures to make one complete one, my favourite. It was a steal at 20 bucks a piece (must be some catch, but it looks good), so I bought 5 of them. A security guy wielding a bamboo baton sat down next to me while I was going through the pics and started talking in Hindi and didn’t stop despite my usual claim of ignorence. I still don’t know what he was on about. I found a ragged looking three wheel driver who insisted on 80 bucks, and I gave in after a few seconds of hollow bargaining. We drove past the same buildings which looked even prettier at night. The driver tried to tell me about them (in Hindi of course) in between violent bouts of coughing and long drags on his beedi. Worryingly he kept looking at me in the mirror while talking instead of watching the road, a sure way to meet the Gods (or demons) on Delhi streets. But then he was quite old and if he survived this long he can’t be that bad.
I got back to my hotel, showered and got the map out to plan where to go the next couple of days. I was very keen on having a look at some moghul architecture, the best bets seemed to be the Jamamasjid and the Red Fort, both the works of Shah Jahan, and these two are also close to some Bazaars. The plan was made. I had just settled into bed when the door bell rang. To my surprise there stood a bell boy and an African man, my twin had finally arrived. His name was Brooke (though it’s spelt and pronounced differently, Brooke is his name of conveniance, like the Chinese ppl in England who say “Hi my name is Wang Qi Zan, but you can call me Bob”) and he’s from Ethiopia, a businessman trying to break into the Indian market. We spoke for a couple of hours about his work, about Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and about dicey Indian traders. But it was late, so we called it a night around 1. A very encouraging start to my introduction to India.
