INDIA – 1st Impressions: Delhi

I had initially planned to take an overnight flight on Friday from Abu Dhabi to Delhi.  There would be a 5-6 hour layover before the Saturday morning flight into Dharamshala.  After the winding mountain cab ride, I had planned to arrive into Bhagsunag (where I am staying) by around 2:00 on Saturday afternoon.  Plenty of time to rest and get my bearings before school started on Monday.  Thanks to my old friend Mr Poopyhead, my travel plans had to change and the overnight flight was not available on Sunday evening.  An earlier option on Sunday afternoon was, and we opted for that.  Ultimately I lost only a day of classes.  Easy to make up!  However, as a result, our layover in Delhi was too long to spend in the airport, so we took a hotel in town for 1 night.

Wow.

Anybody who has ever been to a large Asian city has seen this kind of traffic.  Traffic the likes of which make a simple American rush hour look, well, simple.  Delhi driving is not an exception.  There are SO many people here, you can almost understand how a 2 lane road with a smallish shoulder becomes something between 4 and 5 lanes of living vehicular dance.
The horn, of course, is an integral part of whatever vehicle has been selected.  There were cars and trucks and busses, but also bicycles, rickshaws, tuktuks, horses, scooters, and many, many, motorcycles (sometimes with entire families riding on them).   Everybody darts in and out of whatever spot they feel will get them to their destination more quickly.  They do so with copious horn usage, quick reflexes, and absolutely no fear.  At lights the motorcycles and scooters somehow work their way between cars (though I have no idea how, as closely as they are packed) and end up at the front of the line.  When the light turns green, a virtual sea of 2 wheeled vehicles takes off in every direction, gunning it as they do so in order to gain an extra few seconds in their travels.  The sidewalks and side streets are teeming with people moving in every direction, with and without apparent purpose.  Our commute to the hotel takes over an hour, and we have the opportunity to see the many different ways people live and survive in a city of this size.

We are accompanied by a driver and an escort from the hotel.  The driver’s job is strictly to drive (which is completely understandable) our escort fields questions.  One of the first questions we ask is how many people live here.  He tells us that the ‘official’ number is around 18 million, but the actual is closer to 22 million.  I don’t know the size in terms of landmass, but I can say that looking out the window it did not appear to be as large as most American cities that I have seen from the sky on the landing approach.  Even having seen this kind of crowding before, I am amazed at the sheer number of people everywhere around us, in every direction.  Street vendors with brightly lit carts line the side roads, and the illumination seems to be coming from these as opposed to streetlights.  We laugh with our escort at the cacophony of car horn, just as Italians cannot speak without using their hands.  “When you test a new vehicle here, you must also test the horn!”  Eventually I imagine, you learn to tune it out unless it is close to you.

We arrive at our hotel.  The car is inspected by armed guards, our luggage is put through a scanner, and we are wanded before being allowed to enter.  Security in India (as much of the world) is taken very seriously.  We are greeted inside by serene and happy faces, hands to hearts, and smiling ‘namaste’ from the hotel employees.  Our room is impeccably clean and very nice.  Downstairs in the lounge we have a light dinner with a glass of wine, and my husband gets a lesson in cricket as he watches a match between England and Pakistan with some of the locals on the big screen.

The next morning we are up bright and early.  We had been advised to depart in plenty of time to be able to make it through the rush hour traffic so as to reach the airport in plenty of time to clear security and make our flight.  The drive in daylight is not as friendly.  While the lack of infrastructure and poor housing conditions were obvious even at night, what we could not see then stares us in the face during our drive back.  I knew that only 40% of the population of India has access to sanitary facilities.  I knew not to drink the water or eat the street food.  I did NOT know that what appeared to me to be a city refuse dump was actually a community… until the light of day.  People sleep in the median, on the sidewalks, inside unlit buildings that are either falling down, or under construction (I can’t really tell).  They make homes out of cardboard, tarps, sticks and metal.  Whatever they can cobble together to provide themselves shelter. I wish I’d had my camera at the ready for the one image that is strongest in my head.  In a sea of trash and tarps, I saw a man seated atop what looked like a pile of corrugated metal.  He was meditating… legs crossed, hands relaxed to his knees, eyes closed, head turned slightly up.  He was finding calm in the chaos.  I was in awe and felt a deep respect for his ability to do that.

NOTE: I am finding high speed connection to be sketchy where I am.  It took me a couple of days to find the right spot and hopefully this will upload quickly.  If so, I will post again tomorrow!  As always, thanks for keeping up!