Steak dreams

Looking at the sky in Delhi isn’t easy

It’s horrible, how stomach issues can make one’s life miserable. I spent the last day in Jodhpur on feeling crap and not moving too much to not feel worse. The only trip I made that day was to buy rum – thank you for advice, Kari, I think it did help. Medicating with rum, bananas and chocolate, I spent the day on reading and chatting to Magan, the Kuku guest house manager, and his brothers. They are really great and sort of reinstated my faith in Indians as good, helpful people driven not only by self interest and craving for tourist money.

Main Bazaar in Delhi

During that day, I discovered several unrelated things. (1) Orson Scott Card’s ‘Ender’s Game’ is fantastic – I finished it in a day and need to check out the sequels. (2) You know how the Asians always say that the Asian food you get in Europe has little to do with what they have home? It works both ways. I tried Indian lasagna, pizza and spaghetti – completely new experience. The lasagna was essentially vegetables baked under pasta and cheese, but without the traditional sauces, or layers of pasta, or meat. I thought you can’t go wrong with a tomato and mushroom pizza (I took it specifically to eat something rather bland and save my stomach), but apparently tomatoes contain chili sauce here. As does the dough – every part of that pizza was spicy. The spaghetti bolognese was closest to what you’d expect, but it had finely chopped mutton instead of mince

Market close up

(3) Alcohol is only available in special shops and there are very few of them. It’s not too expensive, but Indians don’t seem to be particularly interested in it. I haven’t seen a single pub, restaurants and bars don’t sell alcohol, you don’t see people drinking on streets. (4) I now know how long my digestive system is. 10-15 minutes long. (5) Soft beds don’t exist in India. 5cm of mattress on boards is all you get. Well, at least in the budget places I stay in. (6) ‘Showering’ in a bucket only seems bad to start with. After a month it’s just fine.

Hotel district

In the evening I took an overnight train to Delhi. A good experience, as always. It’s the first time a train I was on was late, and that only by 15 min on a 10 hour long journey. Take that, stupid, overpriced and unreliable British rail companies!

I soon found a reasonably cheap hostel, bargained for an even lower price, left my stuff and went exploring and shopping. Turns out I’m better at haggling than I thought – I bought a bag for 200R, went to the ATM for money, and as I came back I saw the manager who just arrived shouting at the staff who sold me the bag, because he bought it for 240! I paid them the 240 in the end. I also think that this system is a perfect application of Adam Smith’s ideas – things are worth exactly as much as people are willing to pay for them. All in all, I bought a fair deal of stuff. When I’m back to Scotland, I’ll organise a sale day. Check my bartering skills against the unsuspecting Brits!

Red Fort, and tons of police

The morning exhausted me, and the fact that I hardly ate anything and couldn’t look at food without getting nauseous didn’t help. The fact that in most bars the tables are outside, and the outside is hot and smells of piss and rotting vegetables might have had something to do with it. I went to the hostel, took a longer nap, forced some food inside me and went to see the Red Fort. It’s interesting, but not half as good as the one in Jodhpur.

Inside Red Fort

I explored the old town a bit and tried to go to the mosque, but they wanted to charge me 300R for having a camera even though I said I won’t use it, so I told them to go shag their goats and left. I was really tired by then, so I head home, used the internet, failed at trying to eat something, and went to bed early. Even though the hostel is pretty noisy, I slept reasonably well, waking up only about five times at night. I`m really looking forward to sleeping in my bed again…

Expensive mosque

On the following day I finished with the shopping. My bag is really full and heavy, it will be a pain to carry, but I hope it will be worth it in the end.

I have to say I like Delhi more than I thought I will. I was expecting a second Mumbai, just worse, and instead I’m in a city which is marginally cleaner, has a decent transport system, and actually has something interesting to see in it. I sort of wish I wasn’t so exhausted and could see more, while in Mumbai I just wanted to hide.

President’s Palace

Moreover, when in the afternoon I went to see parts of New Delhi, I was shocked. It was clean, there was grass, wide streets, nice buildings… government buildings and presidential residence. All imperial style, though perhaps that’s better considering that Indian makeshift style doesn’t look particularly representative. Importantly, the road from the government to Gate of India (rather boring arch) is surrounded by parks! Well, stripes of grass and trees.

New Delhi, a stripe of green, almost a park

Only now did I realise that this is something I missed in India – there are no parks here, neither are there any squares, plazas or other public spaces that aren’t markets. It’s amazing how much a city gains thanks to those places! In the hour when I was strolling around the park I could really feel my nerves relaxing and even my tortured stomach started feeling better. I think that this indigestion is caused as much by the food as by the stress of constant noise and bothersome people.

I don’t know what to make of this

Now, back in the hostel, almost completely packed, I honestly can’t wait to go back home. To go to my loved ones. To go to a place where silence exists and where I can feel like a human, not a walking wallet.

New Delhi has rubbish bins …

… which doesn’t mean that anyone uses them

To end this chapter, some final opinions. India is interesting. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s fascinating and magical, unless one is really into Nurgle magic. I also don’t like it. It was good to see it, but seeing it only made me happy I live in the West. I realised that I was wrong to think of myself as a cosmopolitan citizen of the world. I’m not. I’m a Westerner.

It’s not even that I don’t like India. I just don’t like the Indians. I am far from judging them, I`m only expressing a personal attitude; I’m also fully aware that there are many exceptions. I can see how some of their customs are a result of difficult economic situation – the fact that people here are pushy, petty, and constantly look for ways of cheating you is annoying, but justified. I can’t see a similar justification for the Indian love of noise and filth, constant arguments and making everything difficult, bad treatment of women, or the repeated violations of privacy, but if that’s what they like, it’s their land and their choice. All I’m saying is, it’s not my thing, I don’t like it, and I find it really hard to like people who do.

I don’t see many redeeming qualities to counterbalance those issues either. Yes, people are friendly, but are they so much more friendly than elsewhere? I found many amazingly friendly people everywhere I traveled and if anything, India has been rather disappointing – most of those friendly people really just want to sell you something, or are so friendly that you start wishing they finally left you alone for a change. Yes, there are beautiful things here that you won’t see anywhere else in the world, temples and all. It was really worth coming for that. But again, that hardly makes India special – every place has things not found anywhere else, and their density in India isn’t great. There are pearls, but it feels like someone threw a handful of them in a sea of compost. Yes, it’s great to meet a different culture, and this is perhaps the best thing about this trip. It’s interesting to observe basic things done differently, see the overwhelming presence of religion, the different treatment of genders, and a multitude of customs and behaviours unknown in the west. I don’t like many of them, but they are interesting. Yes, there is a lot of living chaos here, but I don’t think this is the inspiring creative chaos I’ve been told about. It’s the chaos of struggle to survive in which everything takes a lot of time and nerves and by the time it spits you out you’re too exhausted to even think of being creative. Admittedly, though, it’s much better in smaller places. Yes, the food is good, you can buy whatever from the smallest most random stand on the street and it will be tasty. Whether anything I ate was that great, I don’t know. I’m not the best judge of flavours, but it seems to me that however many awesome spices you get in the sauce, if you’re served a pile of rice with a scoop of vegetables most of which are potatoes, you’re not exactly getting the best deal.

All in all, I’m glad I came here. I don’t even think India’s that horrible, I think I adapted reasonably well and managed to have a lot of good and interesting time. I just fail to see why some people seem to treat it as some sort of promised land, magic place, jewel in the crown or whatnot. I think it’s OK, but that’s that.