Revisiting Delhi....

No-one can prepare anyone to the shock of arriving in Delhi. It provides quite an insight to the workings of the mind, well mine anyway. I think I know how things are, I know how the world around me works - then I land in Delhi. Here there is nothing familiar to attach myself to. The guide books says, “it will seem strange at first but you will adjust”. ‘Strange’ indeed, and strangely I do adjust. It always shakes me that I find my initial reaction is tempered beyond compare when I return after a few weeks travelling around India. The filth, deprivation, squalor, hassle and frustration have slipped away and I see a modern laid back, cosmopolitan city buzzing with compassion, humour, tenderness and a touching willingness to engage with each other and me. I sometimes can’t believe it is the same place, it makes me laugh each time.

Clare not in Delhi but light relief from the words.

In Delhi germ theory seems defunct, cloths black with dirt are used to wipe surfaces, food is chopped with knives wiped with these same cloths and cooked in the dust of the street. Deep frying and the roasting heat of the tandoors must be our protector from pathogens. No pavement or road surface is smooth or finished, all at pot holed and broken and left half made. Rough concrete is used to build a steps from road to pavement and steps are mostly at least a foot deep – making each step an accomplishment. Rats slip leasurely from the holes jn the concrete to take their share of the pickings. No woodwork or fence is well-painted, all dabbed in paint with cloths leaving uneven coatings and drips everywhere. It is a shambles with rubbish tossed from every workplace, shop, stall, pocket, mouth, arse hole and nostril. Street sweepers clear haphazardly with their witches brooms into concrete bunker havens for street animals from cows and rats to the packs of wild dogs to pick through. Some is burnt - giving the characteristic wood smoke smell of Delhi streets. Small charcoal blocks are lit using litter fires by crouching lads tending snack stalls to keep their snacks warm – another more acrid plastic burning smell.

Silly picture but I was very excited that my camera was working again. It had packed up in the cold of the mountains I think.

I stood for a brief moment outside the metropolis tourist home and notice a large black rat slipping in and out from under the broken concrete step. It came out to collect the remnants of a chapatti – slightly too large to pick up in one piece – discarded by someone from the long queue of dark, black head scarf cloth wrapped and blanketed against the cold destitute and poorer than poor young men and boys who had waited to get a free offering of food earlier as dusk fell. The shop next to our hotel had been preparing aloo sabji in large round caste iron pots and small puri – all day – as an annual charitable offering to the poor of delhi. The rat was taking advantage of the leftovers after the crowds had dispersed back to their dark, black, cold alleyways. A destitute dog too hung limply trying to hide its head between two bikes, too weak to move far, too scared to lie down. I wondered if it would find a tender release over night and we would find its body in the morning – quiet and painless.

All this pain, resourcefulness, compassion, charity and so much more in a small glimpse from the hotel door step as Chinese, European and American tourists walked in and out to their comfortable and clean white sheets, hot showers and wi fi.