Day 72 : Book Excerpt : Delirious Delhi

We had very little business inside Lutyens’ Delhi, but we traveled fairly frequently to Chanakyapuri, just to its west. Chanakyapuri is not technically attributable to Lutyens, but it is almost identical in its spirit of exclusion. It boasts more embassies and swanky hotels than we could visit in a week of lounge-hopping and ambassador-fêting. Dinner in this neighborhood costs more than the guy who drives us there earns in a month. At the entrance to each hotel, a huge valet in full Rajasthani costume—complete with champion mustache—waits for the guard at the gate to dutifully certify that our taxi’s undercarriage is free of bombs so he can open the car door for us. To make it past this bouncer, an Indian has to have the clothes, the car and the mannerisms to certify a certain level of status; for foreigners, as our autorickshaw drops us off in dusty sandals and sweaty T-shirts, all we have to do is be white.

Jenny and I periodically patronized these bastions of exclusivity, we admit. The income we earned in Delhi—which would have made us barely middle class in New York—put us in the highest tiers of Indian society, and we have a weakness for wine that isn’t stored in the hot recesses of a state-run liquor store that caters primarily to on-duty autorickshaw drivers. Still, it wasn’t entirely possible to enjoy our $50 Japanese yakitori on the same day we’d pay Shilpa, our bungalow’s sweeper, $6 for her full month of work.

We learned the importance of going into both Lutyens’s Delhi or Chanakyapuri with a pre-planned exit strategy. On the Sunday night that our friend Penny invited us for drinks at the Canadian embassy, we’d stumble back onto Indian soil to the starkest reminder that everyone in this area could afford their own car: no empty autorickshaws were cruising around looking for fares. So silent were those nighttime streets that we heard an autorickshaw approaching from a half-mile away, a little lawnmower engine slowly puttering up the vast expanse of road. Our hopes rose, visions of our pillows tickled our sleepy minds, but then the dark shape in the back seat told us that this autorickshaw was occupied, and that we were best off walking to India Gate to find a lift.
Ah, India Gate! The one location in Lutyens’s Delhi that defied Lutyens’ best intentions.
...
An Arc de Triomphe-style monument designed to commemorate those who died in service of the British Indian Army, this contribution to the Empire’s eternal grandeur has been appropriated by men, women and children as a place to gather when the sun goes down.

It’s an inspiring sight. And it’s a side of India whose existence the Western media hadn’t prepared us to expect. From all the news reports and documentaries we’d seen about India, we were anticipating only extremes: pious thousands bathing at sunrise at the Varanasi ghats; dazzling rainbows of saris drying in the wind; heart-wrenching poverty, blindingly modern malls, catastrophically overcrowded trains. All these images of India are cliché in the West. But what we never expected—because our media had never suggested it existed—were the simple, everyday pleasures of an evening at India Gate: ice cream vendors, laughing kids, strolling newlyweds, teenage boys pretending not to notice teenage girls, aunties glaring at teenage boys, happy parents, kite flyers, toy peddlers, snack sellers, and every other complement to the Indian nuclear family.
....
Most stray dogs are ragged and haggard, with patchy fur and the vacant look of the perennially hunted. An exception was the gang of three who lived outside our building: Bruno, Signal and Snoopy, who were stray in name only. They’d been adopted by our neighbor Anya, a single woman in her thirties who lived in her late grandfather’s flat on the floor below ours. The only difference between being “adopted” and “owned” was that they weren’t allowed inside the building at night. The three were fussed over and fed far too much. Fat from their lavish life, they spent their days napping, waddling from one nap to another, and biting the tires of passing cars. By night, though, the envy of strays who actually had to work for a living meant that their territory was constantly being encroached. So their vocal cords got the workout their scavenging muscles never did, inevitably right below our bedroom window.

But nighttime was serene as compared to morning, starting at sunrise with the mosque, followed closely by car horns and bicycle bells and paellawallahs. After that came less delicious sounds, like the pigeons who had regular sex on our air conditioner, their claws scratching the metal surface of the window unit, the male cooing pigeon poetry while desperately flapping himself into the mounting position. Or like the workers at the ICICI Bank depository across the street who dropped metal boxes out of armoured cars and threw other boxes inside, their hollow booms observed by a dozen guards who stood around fingering ancient rifles. The sweepers then joined the chorus, pushing a day’s accumulation of dust into the gutters so that passing cars and passers-by throughout the day would kick it up to coat the sidewalks and driveways, ensuring the sweepers would have something to sweep again the next morning.

~~Delirious Delhi -by- Dave Prager