Sights to behold

Thursday 3rd April

- Humayan's Tomb
- the streets of Delhi.
- Lodi Gardens

our second full day in India and Delhi was probably our first full introduction to all of the aspects of this city. starting in The Park and ending in the Amax Inn in Panharganj, it took in great riches and appalling poverty, the height of modernity and ancient sites, shocks to the system and balms for the soul. we both thought today was our best day so far - but then, we have been here only two full days.

after an uneventful morning, enlivened only by my 78th attempt at repacking my bag and our second attempt at a breakfast that neither of us is interested in (as a concept when we just aren't hungry, and also because it's difficult to enthuse about breakfast when the place in which you are staying has about 12 world varieties on hand), we rather thankfully checked out of The Park's artificial veneer and planted ourselves by the road with half an eye out to see if Chandra would arrive as promised. he did - early - but not too early for us to learn the Sikh greeting 'sat sri akal' from another auto-rickshaw driver.

Chandra's wonderful saffron orange turban of yesterday had been replaced by one in slate grey to match his Punjabi trousers and shirt, both immaculate. we were more confident in asking for a direct transfer with no tailors and shops and then some sightseeing. he, it became apparent, was not in a good mood, unlike his fine joviality of the previous day. i certainly never expected to hear a Sikh in India describe someone else's driving with the epithet 'f****** b******.'

auto-rickshaw rides continue to enthall us. there is nothing quite like breathing in a lifetime's pollution in twenty minutes while marvelling at the lack of fatalities during any one journey and trying not to gawp at the unfathomable contrasts all around. a short auto-rickshaw ride is an event in itself, both invigorating and also exhausting in equal measure.

Street scene, Delhi

Chandra took us to the Amax Inn and we checked into a better room than those they had showed us before for at least two nights. we had considered sorting ourselves out for a bit and then using Chandra as a shuttle between a few New Delhi-located sites / sights for the afternoon, as we had agreed, but he wanted to get a move on as we were trying to see a probably unrealistic number of things in one afternoon. the check-in took a little longer than we had expected, while Chandra had trouble in the narrow streets that are always filled with chattering people and fruit sellers, slow moving bovines, pedal and auto-rickshaws, some street children and constant mopeds and motorcycles whizzing through their narrow confines.

our first stop was India Gate - this time in daylight. actually, our first stop was a new store that Chandra wanted us to visit for reasons several and vague, but we did like him and indulged him on this one occasion.

India Gate, Delhi

India Gate seemed somehow even more monumental in the light of day, located near one end of the dead straight Rajpath royal mile. its arch hangs a weighty 42 meters up, sandstone etched with the names of those who died on the North West frontier and the 1919 Afghan War.

it's clearly a centre for tourists both Indian and not, people with huge family groups, sellers of sweet things - Indians evidently have sweet teeth in near-constant need of resupply - and the usual crowd of those hoping to divest you of some of your Rupees. our favourite today was well dressed women who approach you claiming to be teachers, pin India flags on your clothing and then ask for donations for their apparently invisible pupils.

Get your oranges here!

we didn't stay too long, and Chandra was keen for us to hurry anyway to our next stop and the one place in Delhi that Edd really wanted to go to, the World Heritage Site of Humayan's Tomb, Delhi's first Mughal mausoleum and the model for Agra's Taj Mahal.

Humayan's Tomb, Delhi

Humayan was the second Mughal Emperor and his Tomb is an impressive array of red sandstone edifices inlaid with white and black marble. we both really wanted some proper time and space, here, so we parted company with Chandra and paid him for all of his time with a tip that we thought was reasonable and with which he was clearly OK. we separate amicably and with both sides satisfied, surely the way it should be.

like all of India's historic monuments, foreigner's pay many times the rate of locals to enter, but what translates as three pounds seems entirely reasonable to the point of being seriously underpriced when you go to somewhere like this.



beautifully laid out (dry) water-channelled gardens, filled - as are all of Delhi's green spaces - with more striped squirrels, parrots, hoopoes, eagles and other birds than you would find in a 100 UK aviaries. even the pigeons and crows are blue and irridescent blue-black respectively. as well as the massive main tomb itself, the red sandstone ramparted walls of the many-acred grounds contain other tombs,

mosques
and assorted archaeological stuff. it was also the first time we saw the staple of all major sites in India - patient men with stick brooms endlessly, but with unsurpassable efficiency, sweeping, sweeping, sweeping leaves.

we really fell in love with the place. we spent over two hours touring around, sitting and relaxing, chilling out in this haven of tranquility. the mausoleum itself looms up and out over Delhi, very much like a red sandstone Taj Mahal without minarets (well, as far as we could tell at this stage!). it's quite something.

Edd had interested in checking out the adjacent old medieval Sufi Islamic quarter of Nizamuddin on the way to our next and final stop of the afternoon, Lodi Gardens. the ten minute walk we took and then the rickshaw ride to the Gardens brought us quite literally face to face with Delhi as it is lived by those at the very bottom of the other end of the scale from those Indians we had seen staying in the air-conditioned luxury of The Park hotel.

what happens to your middle-class, London dwelling, liberal values when you realise that the man walking on the road's central reservation is doing so on foam-strapped knees because he has no feet, only withered, peg-leg style stumps? how do you feel about where you live when you realise the central reservation is his home? what do you say or do when a succession of unspeakably unfortunate souls appears next to you, essentially seeking alms? how do you look at your own lives - and your new camera - when the man begging on the ground between the cars and rickshaws is doing so as his legs have no purposeful function? when another man with a figure like a dying tree and rheumy, jaundiced eyes insistently asks for help, or a woman with a child in her arms repeatedly asks you to buy her Bohpal-themed news sheets emblazoned with skulls, how do you re/act? when you stay in the road rather than on the pavement to avoid walking through the rags and carefully sifted garbage piles that constitute the earthly possessions of so many, did you do so out of privacy - a word that does not exist in Hindi - or because you saw that they were sniffing glue and injecting heroin?

less than 1500 metres away, the free park of Lodi Gardens is such a beautiful contrast as to be almost nauseating at first. here, families in their very best clothes are having picnics and playing cricket among the glazed domes of large tombs and octagonal red sandstone ramparts. here, where we saw the only pet dogs we have so far seen in India being walked among the whimpering strays. here, where the air is alive with the sound and colour of countless birds of extraordinary varieties. here, where London's mightiest parks seem insipid and uninspired.

Lodi Gardens, Delhi

back at the Amax Inn (via our first very successful and since adopted rickshaw hail of destination, desired price and question mark, followed by a possible short haggle), it was good to have some time to take all of this in. Hindu notions of Karma don't really allow for Judeo-Christian concepts of helping the poor. with no welfare system, it is not callousness, nor disdain as such, more an acceptance, a fatalism and a belief that things may be better next time around. certainly the last rickshaw driver was a torrent of smiles, Teach Yourself Hindi phrase suggestions and pleasant banter. perhaps his former lives were better than those of the limbless street dwellers he passes every day. i would assume that he doesn't really think about it too much - after all, if it is Karma that finds him where he is, then Karma also explains the situations of others. that is how it is.

the evening was spent filtering drinking water - it's pure, but tastes wyrd - seeking out and finding an internet cafe in the more backpackery area of Panharganj, and having a meal so simple but great that it could - notionally {;-) - turn me veggie. having said that, sweet and salt lime sodas and Limca have to be introduced to the UK ASAP - they are the most refreshing drinks in the world. all this ensured much darting about among the pleasingly fruitloop streets of Panharganj, an area that the British tried to level but did not get around to doing so. if you poured a hundred thousand people onto the narrow alleyways of the City in London and had them live out most aspects of their lives there, you'd still not be close to the lunacy and intoxication of this place.

more assured, assertive and at home that we had so far been, we retired and collapsed into sleep. the ground under our feet will always shift in India, but our balance gets better with each and every experience.

our very best

edd & philippa {:-)