The Foreigners: Part I
I’ve met such interesting people here. The majority, due to the nature of the area in which I am staying here in Delhi, are foreigners. And you meet them in the strangest ways. (Any descriptions that follow and the qualities of the people described have nothing to do with their nationalities – it’s just easier to identify them by country of origin…)
Jo, an Australian, posted on the Lonely Planet website saying she was going crazy in Delhi and had holed herself up in her room watching bad American movies. I read the posting before I left and wrote back saying I was arriving and would love to meet her. On day two in Delhi I was knocking on her hotel room door in a sister hotel across the stinky alleyway from my own. Jo and I laughed about the screaming touts, scams and scents of Delhi and made our way to the rooftop restaurant of my hotel. That’s one great thing about hotels here. Almost all have rooftop restaurants that afford some peace, if not quiet.
Up on the roof we sat down to banana lassis and met yet another traveller in a strange way, this time because of veggies. Warned never to eat fresh, uncooked veggies, Phillip the American was trying to explain to the cooks how to fry up the veggies he had bought from a vendor.
“Spicy?” they asked.
“No spice!” said Phillip.
“Pepper?”
“No Pepper!”
“Butter?”
“No butter! Just oil. Just fry. Cut in pieces and fry.”
Jo and I watched as Phillip struggled to make himself understood and the cooks tried to understand what he wanted. They showed him the veggies in the fridge, exactly the same ones as Phillip had bought and said, “We have veggie-tables, friend!”
But Phillip knew that when they were done they’d be mushy and unrecognizable. After six weeks of masala dosa, Phillip just wanted some veggies. Jo suggested he cook them himself, but Phillip managed to get across the concept of fried veggies and we went in to see them. The cooks were delighted that we were taking interest in their food preparation and our Indian waiter, definitely off his rocker, danced for us and blew up balloons, ostensibly to amuse us. Then out came the veggies and a celebration ensued. Lightly fried, but still al dente, a delighted Phillip devoured his veggies while Jo and I, still new to India and loving her food, contentedly munched on our dinners. Bonding over trying to communicate with Indians, Jo, Phillip and I would spend the next few days together amassing adventures.
Foreigners: Part II – The Greeks
My first day I was so desperate to talk to someone that I was immensely relieved when someone walked into the email centre where I was frantically sending messages reporting my safe arrival. Despite the brave face, walking the 300m to the email centre had shaken me up – two men had tried to begin never-ending conversations as I tried politely but unsuccessfully to get them to leave me alone.
One claimed that he was written up in Lonely Planet and was going to save me from scams, the other just wanted to “practice his English.” I’ve learned very quickly to turn my ears and eyes off, to make no eye contact at all, to look down sometimes as I walk. I am still hounded by shouts of “Canada! Miss Canada!”
Damn flag on my backpack.
By the time I got to the email centre I wondered how I could handle 3� months of harassment and constant attempts at scamming. It’s hard not to lose my belief that most people are good, as so many try to take advantage. My year of research has proven invaluable to keep me from being scammed in a big way like a lot of the travellers I’ve met.
In the email centre, the man who sat down next to me was a beautiful Greek with eyes the colour of summer ferns, and that slightly oily-olive Mediterranean skin. He was here on business, he said, buying things for his store on a Greek island. As I exalted in finding someone to talk at in my first 2 hours in Delhi, he suggested going for coffee. We went and woke up his business partner and headed for a rooftop cafe. As we sat he unfolded his story for me, of being tricked into staying his first night in an expensive hotel when his rickshaw driver took him to a fake tourism operation. There, the owner pretended to call his hotel and told him it was full. He had really been speaking to his brother in the back room, and they managed to get the two Greeks to an expensive hotel to make up for their “fully booked” hotel.
After hearing his story, our discussions turned to Greece and I pulled out the little Greek I knew from my literature class. I sat in the rooftop cafe, discussing Socrates and Diotima’s discourse on love with Greek men. Even though it wasn’t a significant moment, all I could think was, “Well, I know I wouldn’t be doing this at home.”
I spent the rest of the day with the Greeks, avoiding Angelos’ attempts to lure me later on back to his room before they left the next day for Jaipur, walking the main bazaar and having shop owners display their goods for the Greeks’ possible purchases. This was ideal for me, since I got to experience the display of goods, and the negotiation without any pressure. I picked my favourite store and later had salwar kameez made there.
That night, at dinner with the Greeks and two Israelis, one who couldn’t stop talking about releasing blocked energy, as Angelos went on about how everything here is about money, I fell asleep. A perfect excuse to go back to my hotel, I wished the Greeks good luck and walked the smelly streets back to the Star Palace.
Foreigners: Part III – The Trustafarians
The next day in my hotel’s rooftop restaurant I met two Brits, “Trustafarians” as one friend calls them – young men who had finished their A-levels and were off to Cambridge with their posh accents, waiting for their trust accounts to come through. Both were asses, and I have to admit I was secretly delighted to hear they had been scammed into buying a flight and a week on a houseboat in war-torn Kashmir. Suckers. (Bad Emily… be nice…) With them was a ferociously socialist Swede who was forced to defend Sweden when one of the Brits pronounced it insignificant.
As the Trustafarians went off to nap, Johan and I went to the train station where we met the strangest man of all…Brass Ring Man.
Foreigners: Part IV – Brass Ring Man
Waiting in the queue for my rail tickets, an older man asked me where in Canada I was from. (Backpack flag again…) He announced he was from Alaska, but came to India regularly. He pulled out a picture of himself with Mother Teresa and told me how a 62-year old man from Alaska could be led to God. Convinced I was on the same path as him after he heard my schedule and deemed me well-informed, he told me that God would lead me the way he had him.
Upon hearing I was going to Agra, he told me to go see his friend and asked me to let him know that he would be in Agra on June 13th. He didn’t seem to see the strange look on my face. Finally I was at the front of the line and ordered my tickets. He brought over the address of his friend in the luggage shop in Agra.
After I finished he came over to me again and said, “Don’t trust the Indians. Especially Indian men. Don’t get into trains with them or travel with them. I know. Personal experience,” he confided.
I hoped the two, very sensible-looking Indian men next to us couldn’t speak English.
“They’ll steal everything you have,” he continued, “See this hat? They tried to steal it from around my neck. That’s why I have these rings.” And as I looked at his hat, I noticed a large brass ring sewn into it. I looked down at his shoes and there were brass rings in the tongues of each of his shoes. Brass rings in his gloves (gloves in 44 degree Delhi?) and all of his wallets were chained to his body with brass rings. Everything he owned had brass rings sewn into them.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continued, “I love India. It’s intoxicating. When I get home I’m already looking forward to my next trip. I just started this one and I’m already looking forward to the next one.” He fiddled with a brass ring in his bag.
I didn’t know what to say. I stood there, smiling pleasantly, but relieved when Johan came over to get me. I gratefully left with him and thought to myself, which would be scarier – being alone with Indian men in a train carriage, or Brass Ring Man? It was a toss-up. So far, India has surprised me less than her visitors.
The Oatmeal
Indian food is fabulous. I have always loved it.
Getting Western food right is not easy for Indians. Every morning at home I eat oatmeal and a banana, so when I said “Porridge made with milk and banana” on that first morning, home comfort appealed to me.
When it arrived it was gelatinous and had somehow solidified into the mold of the bowl. I spooned some into my mouth and regretted it immediately. The Greeks I was with had no idea what oatmeal was and this was a terrible introduction. It tasted like grainy, rancid milk. If there was banana there, I’ll never know. I put some sugar on my spoonful and thought of the irony of getting Delhi Belly from Western food.
Later that day as I sat sweating in one of the stalls on the main bazaar, I realized my mistake. The oatmeal had been cooked in milk with banana, that’s why no milk had been poured on it and no banana was to be found. The item above on the menu had said, “Porridge made with water”. I had thought to myself, Who would pour water over oatmeal?!! A simple misunderstanding. I think I’ll stick to paranthas.
The Shrine
After dinner on my second night, Jo, Philip and I took a rickshaw, carefully negotiated, to Nizam-Ud-Din Chishti’s shrine. On Thursday evenings, a special ceremony takes place and I was dying to go and watch. I had asked the British boys and the Swede I had met earlier if they would come with me, but the Brits took a bus to Kullu and the Swede went and got drunk before taking the train to Chandigarh and Dharamsala. Jo and Phillip were convinced and, supplying them with the historical background on the Sufi movement and Nizammudin Chishti – I am such a geek! – we headed out.
As we arrived at the site, we saw tens of Muslim men in white streaming to their cars. Disappointed, and convinced that we were late, we almost left but walked to the point where they seemed to be streaming from. There we discovered a brightly lit passageway of boutiques that led, maze-like, into the distance. Twisting and turning, we had no idea of where they went, and I asked a man where the shrine and music was. His eyes lit up and he began walking quickly through the wonderful smelling stalls of cooked meats and spices, and Arabic and Urdu book stalls, past beggars and children and more beggars and more children.
As we walked, piles of shoes were littered along the borders of the stalls, until someone yelled for me to take off my shoes as I hurried past, determined not to lose our guide. We arrived at the entrance to the shrine, where three men sat amongst a pile of shoes tied with twine, and told us to remove our shoes before entering. They then gave us numbers to take in order to get our shoes back later. It’s sad, but I even thought about the possibility of having my shoes stolen as I removed them and handed them to the man. India brings out thoughts like these in a manner that no other country does.
In the stalls near the shrine were piles and piles of slightly soggy pink carnations, and bundles of what looked like white popcorn – offerings for the shrine. Jo, Phillip and I bought some to bring in with us and Phillip bought a plastic hat that we jokingly called his basket, while Jo bought a green tasseled scarf with which to cover her head inside the shrine. I pulled out my bandana and we walked over the marble threshold as men exiting kissed the cold marble.
Once inside, we were guided to the shrine, which was an intricately carved ivory-coloured box within another intricately carved ivory-coloured box. In the first box was one tomb, and women stood, surrounding the second box, which they were not permitted to enter. Jo and I gave our offerings to Phillip as he entered the female-forbidden second box, and we peered through the carved designs inside. Men stood, praying, with hands together, palms facing up, as though ready to receive a message, a flower, an answer. The women surrounding us did the same, while some kneeled, heads bent, and others kissed the carved wall. As we stood there, I found myself crying. Not quite sure why, possibly jet lag, or just an overwhelming experience I hadn’t anticipated, I wiped my eyes as the Muslim women pointed at the silly Western girl crying at the shrine.
As we exited the shrine area, the man who had led us waited patiently outside with a guest registry which we signed, and then pointed out that donations should be made. He showed us a registry of large donations for various parts of the complex – the school, shrine upkeep, etc. We said we’d rather give to the donation box, and he said, “It is your wish.”
Suddenly, a wail. Then an answering chorus of wails. A drum beat. Down the steps we walked to an open courtyard where a hundred people sat around a group of Qawaali musicians. Raw voices chanted in Urdu, maybe Arabic, as we wove our way to an empty area to sit.
I closed my eyes to listen to this music, one of the only things on my agenda for this trip being listening to music, and here I was, on day two, in a kaleidoscopic Muslim maze of streets, sitting in an oasis of sound. I could hear, my eyes still closed, a small boy asking Phillip for money, someone speaking to him as the music played. A man circled through the audience with a large green fan, moving the hot evening air. I began to drift off.
When we first sat down, heads slowly turned as pockets of people looked at the Westerners. As we left, the same heads turned to watch these visitors go. I must be careful about trying to enter into their heads. I only wish I knew what they were thinking.
I felt guilty, inadequate, uncomfortable. Maybe we should have stayed longer. I wish I knew Urdu. I just wanted to enter the experience as another human, as a music lover listening to the divinity of sound. But like a failed actor who can’t imagine the third wall where the audience sits, I found that I could only watch myself as I was being watched. Perhaps sometime I can let go, slip into a river of pure experience without fear, with courage.
The Rockin’ Rickshaw
On our way back from our evening at the Sufi shrine, Jo and Phillip and I sped through the stalls of bread being made, spices, and fruits, past the piles of shoes, to the main street where we caught a rickshaw.
We negotiated the rate with what turned out to be our two drivers, young (17-ish) brothers. They asked us where we were from. I noted that we were all from former British colonies – a Canadian, Australian and American. They apparently loved all of our countries and as we sped down the streets of Delhi, in two lanes at once and honking the horn all the way, one of the brothers popped in a cassette of Hindi music.
One by one we all started bopping; Philip began to boogie beside me and the Rickshaw Brothers giggled and encouraged him. One brother turned up the music as the other wriggled his shoulders. And then Jo and I joined in, Jo bobbing her head, me shimmying my shoulders like we were taught at bellydancing, as provocatively the women in the Bollywood music videos that show on channel 4 in Toronto on Sunday afternoons. As provocatively as possible in a teeny rickshaw wheedling its way past the brightly lit India Gate and boulevards.
As we stopped in traffic our drivers grinned large grins out from the rickshaw to moped drivers and other rickshaws around us, saying with their eyes, “Look at how happy we are in our little rickshaw! Look how much fun we’re having!”
At the same time, Phillip, Jo and I looked at each other and couldn’t stop laughing, delighted at the heady high we all felt for making some kind of a connection to Indians. Something real was happening. Some kind of bridge was being built under the evening sky. A Rickshaw Brother turned up the music louder as our rickshaw turned dangerously sharply around the roundabouts at Conaught Place. I picked up the musical line, singing loudly, “ba ba ba INdia! ba ba ba INdia!” We raced this way back to our tourist ghetto Pahar Ganj and I got out of the rickshaw still singing.
Philip gave the Brothers our money and one brother handed him less change than we had negotiated. “But music, friend! ba ba ba INdia!” It seemed that night that the bridge we had built had a toll. A connection was broken there, at least for us, as money came back into the ever-present picture of this India I am dreaming. And yet, I fell asleep singing, “Ba ba ba INdia…”
