One one things

My phone had died and I didn’t have a charger so I had to hope the sun would wake me up before it was time to present. I had been told on Thursday that I’d most probably be presenting at the 11am plenary session, this worked well for me bc I could then finish up by 1, have lunch and then keep the evening to do some more Delhi exploration. Breakfast was poor yet again but probably the best of the three days. It was amusing how the hotel tried to up the service on the final day, they called me a couple of times to see how I was. It’s a good tactic, last impressions count. After breakfast I ambled towards the conference area and ran into one of the organizers who said that my talk was confirmed for 2pm, almost completely ruining my plans. It was too hot to do anything so I killed a couple of hours reading Naipaul’s Among the Believers before lunch. Due to the chaos of organisation, I found myself presenting in the science and technology services group. The odd thing was that as it turned out, mine was the most relevent of all the presentations. Most of them spoke about the technological advances they had made in each of their areas, and none of these had anything to do with services! One was about coir manufacture, another about wheat production and one about GM food. Much of it was like a botany lesson, the coir guy even had a video about coconut plucking in one of his slides. One fellow had about 3 slides devoted to the chemical composition of nicotine. The guy behind me fell asleep, head tilted back, mouth open, specs almost off, snoring. I kid you not. But the Gods were on our side, time was running short so after 3 slides on the number of hydroxyl molecules in durum wheat, the last guy had to say that he can’t go into detail on this and called it a day. I had to rush through mine but I think the ppl liked it, a few of them came up to me afterwards and asked for my card, which is usually a good sign. Unless I get a parcel bomb or a virus in my inbox next week.

I rushed back to the room to change into something more casual and ran out of the hotel to catch a trishaw. I was off to Jama Masjid, the biggest mosque in India. I was told its quite far, and at 5 o clock, it was the height of rush hour. All this while I had travelled mainly in and around the plush part of Delhi, the diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri and past the administrative regions towards Connaught Place. Today’s journey would take me away from this area towards downtown Delhi. The ride was indeed quite far, and rush hour in Delhi is absoultely mad. Everyone horns very liberally, and cars move within inches of one another, at pace. Whenever the tri stopped at traffic lights various salesman approached the vehicle to sell all manner of things from newspapers to lime juice to “drinking” water in plastic bags. As we approached the mosque the area became increasingly poor and derelict. The wide shadey roads turned into narrow, dusty and crowded roads, with competition for every inch of space. The buildings on the side became increasingly like slave island in Colombo, and then progressively worse. The slum areas are dirty and smell bad, the ppl appear to live in near abject poverty just outside the plush residential areas. The contrast in Delhi is far sharper than what we see in Colombo. This puts in perspective the reality of India’s development. We speak of India as an emerging super power, but very few living in the country would actually believe that. As I write there is a near dengue epidemic in the city, the victims include the PM’s grandkids, and I’m not surprised given the conditions on the streets in the poorer parts of the city. It was a harsh reminder that true development is not just about hitting good growth figures and showing some muscle in the WTO. It needs a combination of solid open economic policy coupled with concerted efforts at human development at the grass root level.

The road leading up to the Jama Masjid is near impossible to tackle on wheels. But the trishaw guy inched his way along the road, knocking a richshaw in front of him in the process. This resulted in a casual glance over the shoulder by the rickshaw guy and everyone getting on with life, no fuss. The tiny street was impossibly crowded, full of stalls selling a number of things from fresh fish to jewellery, it looked dodge as hell. I finally made my way up the stairs to the mosque after a rather hectic journey, and it was certainly worth it. The mosque is amazing. It is the largest in India, built by Shah Jahan in 1656. It consists of three towering domes, a massive court yard in the middle for prayer, holding up to 25,000 ppl. Unfortunately the women have to pray on the sidelines and only the men use the court yard itself. There was a carnival atmosphere in the mosque, loads of families had brought little picnics along with their mats and sat down and chatted while others prayed and the kids ran around feeding the many pigeons. The architecture was again lovely, the characteristic detailed engravings on the roofs and walls along with the curved domes were everywhere. The sheer size of the place is awesome, and I could just picture the place teeming with devotees when at full capacity, a carpet of white rising and falling in namaz. From the mosque you can see the Red Fort, Lal Qila, also a creation of Shah Jahan, and yet another different style of moghul architecture. I couldn’t get a close up view of the place, but it’s another amazing monument, again of awesome size and wonderful brick red colour. At the mosque I had to pay 200 bucks bc I had a camera and I was then taken aside by a guy who explained to me some of the details of the architecture and some of the traditions. Including the entrances from the East, North and South but not the West since that is the direction of Mecca. And the 10 curved domes, five on either side of the main dome, symbolizing the five pillars of Islam and the 5 times of day that namaz takes place. This explanation set me back a further 150 bucks, of course I didn’t know the explanation came at a price. Not the most moral behaviour in a place of worship. What to do. I lingered on for a bit longer, soaking in the atmosphere, trying to imagine what it would have looked like 350 years ago when in full cry.

I returned to the hotel thoroughly satisfied, I had seen what I wanted to see and done what I wanted to do. When I think of Delhi I will always remember its amazing architecture and the different smells of the city, good smells and bad smells, and of course for the contrasts, green and shady alongside gray and dusty, wealth and oppulence alongside poverty and destitution, Western and Eastern, BMW’s and Ambassadors, awe and pity. It’s a wonderful city and I really would like to come back again and see more of it, I know that I have only just scratched the surface.

Back in Colombo: I wrote that just as I was about to check out of the hotel. Unfortunately things took a turn for the worse soon afterwards. The organizers had sponsored me for three nights, and I didn’t expect to pay anything when to my shock the hotel insisted I pay for a 4th night bc I had stayed beyond the 12 noon check out on Friday. This is quite poor bc I was presenting till 4 and the conference went on till 6, how could one possibly check out by 12? I agreed to pay half a day’s charges, but it was a poor effort in customer relations by the management at the Samrat hotel. I would not recommend it to anyone (that I like). It was a sad way to end an excellent trip. Another rather worrying thing was the tip sharks. As I got into my taxi to leave to the airport, every hotel staff member in sight rushed towards me for a tip. The bell boy, the security guard and the valet all poked their hands at me. I said that I don’t have change after tipping the bell boy, but the other two insisted and even offered to change my money. I squeezed into the car and got away. The taxi driver was more subtle. He said, “Life of a taxi driver in Delhi is very bad sir, only Rs. 2500 for a month we are getting. Only can survive on tips sir.” So I gave him 100 bucks as I got down at the airport. I’m now back at home, after waking up with the sun on my back and the a fan whistling over my head, sitting in my breezy room and promising for the nth time to never curse SL weather, trust me, we have it good.