Delhi for the first time (since '99) - Part I

The Rajdhani Express is really the best way to travel by train to Delhi. The ticket is more expensive than those of other trains on the same route, but with your Rajdhani ticket you get food. And it is much better food than what is offered for sale on the average over-nighter, where dinner is usually a pretty unappetizing and spiceless subji and dal that needs the addition of lime pickle to be vaguely interesting.

The first time I visited Delhi during this, my second sojourn in the sub-continent, my colleagues and I took the Rajdhani, having reserved berths in the 3AC carriages. We monopolized the compartment in which most of us had berths, seven of us squeezing onto the bottom bunks that serve as seats during the day. The elderly couple sitting opposite each other by the window and small table didn’t seem to mind us taking up so much room in a space meant for six people and they even took an interest in the conversation in Hindi my colleagues were carrying on and laughed at their jokes.

My experience of the Rajdhani’s catering started with a late afternoon snack (we boarded at 5:30), which arrived at our compartment in the arms of a white-jacketed steward, who distributed small boxes to each of us in turn. In the box was a sandwich with an invisible filling (possibly mayonnaise), a small vegetable samosa wrapped in waxed paper, a cartoon of mango juice and a bottle of water, and a ladoo-type sweet for dessert. We each also received a mini-flask of hot water for tea or coffee, so the snack became something of a picnic, each of us sipping a drink and balancing our trays of food on our knees.

Dinner three hours later managed to go one better than this afternoon picnic. To my delight the steward taking orders was asking for a preference between veg and non-veg. Of course, I opted for non-veg and so enjoyed a chicken curry accompanied by the ubiquitous dal, rice and roti, which was followed by individual tubs of vanilla ice cream. Soon after we had finished eating, the train pulled into a station that I was told was famous for its chai. Two of my colleagues hopped out onto the platform and quickly went in search of a chai stand. I got down too but stayed within a few feet of the door, not confident enough to stray further away from safety. I had an inkling that once the train got moving it was not going to stop for anything. I got back on with at least another minute to spare and waited in our berth for the tea to arrive. Once it did, my colleagues pleased to have got the small cups and plastic bag of hot tea onto the train in time, we sat back and sipped the chai and I talked with Nishant and Monal about Paul Robb’s A history of India, which I had brought with me. At about 9.30 the elderly husband and wife at the window indicated that they wanted to go to bed, so our group broke up and we each set about unfolding the sheets for our narrow beds. I had a top bunk; my ankles and feet stick out into the aisle and mean the middle and lower bunks are best avoided.

The next morning we arrived at New Delhi station and Nishant and I split off from the rest of the group to make our way to the flat of a friend of his. I rarely sleep well on the train, the bunks are too narrow, too short and either you end up surrounded by snorers or the light at the end of the bed wont turn off. So it was with slightly gritty eyes that I looked out at Delhi from the auto for the first time in nine years. It looked different. I had a vague memory of lusher vegetation, more chaos and greater noise. Although this was early in the morning, the feel of the city was not the same as I remembered it to be. I mentioned this to Nishant and he agreed, the city had changed, especially in the last five years. It struck me that the buildings had been cleaned up; the plethora of old hoardings had been replaced with state of the art advertising displays with ads for Tata Indicom, Airtel and Vodafone.

After ten minutes or so we were into the broad, well-maintained avenues of central New Delhi. Traffic here was orderly, regulated and well accommodated by the wide roads. A car ahead of us at a light had a ‘Press’ sign in the rear window. As we turned off a cross roads onto one of these identical looking streets, we were flagged down by a policeman in standard khaki uniform, brown beret and polished black shoes. I assumed this was a routine check, but instead of asking the driver for his papers the policeman stepped forward to climb in and perch on the driver’s seat. The driver protested and waved the officer back in with us, where there was just enough room for him to squeeze in next to Nishant. On his shoulders were big dull silver stars. Nishant adopted an expressionless face and asked our passenger how far he was going. It turned out not to be far, just 500 meters down the road, where the policeman got down without paying anything and looked at least a little sheepish. Nishant looked at me and said ‘this is Delhi’.

Making the papers

The 15th August is Indian Independence Day and so both Dani and I worked from home on the morning of that Friday; my office and Dani’s school were closed. In the afternoon we took an auto to Law Garden, where the charity run by Dani’s Principal had organised a road closure and street fair. This was meant to be for all children, the well-off and those surviving on the streets, and it was good to see them queuing up to go on a swing, watching a magician and trying to keep up with a serious-looking dance instructor giving rapid instructions in Hindi. There was also a band and a DJ.

Unfortunately for us we drew a lot of attention from the crowds, admittedly mostly after we had had orange, white and green stripes daubed on our cheeks like many of the kids. We were hardly able to walk 20 feet without a press cameraman or amateur with a camera phone asking us to pose. After a while my grin became more of a rictus and even that I could barely keep up. We made it into the Ahmedabad editions of the Times of India and DNA newspaper though. The Times captioned our photo in front of the Indian flag, ‘Crossing over the spirit of India!’ In both montages we had almost as much space as Rahul Bose, the Bollywood actor drafted in to make the charity event extra news worthy.

The weekend feeling the street fair gave us had actually started the night before when we went out for dinner. I think we committed something of a sin doing this, as we ate in one of Ahmedabad’s seriously up-market Italian restaurants. This one, poorly situated behind a petrol station but on the SG highway that skirts the Western edge of the city and where the land prices for expensive ventures must be attractive, was actually rather fun. A huge neon sign-board blaring ‘TGB’s Little Italy Ristorante’ in bright white italic lettering identified the place from afar and we headed past the petrol pumps to approach the door down a walkway covered by white tenting adorned with the Italian flag. We were early for dinner at quarter to eight; the place was empty. But this suited us. We settled into deeply comfortable seats in the air-conditioned chill of the slate, wood and glass dining room, got carried away and spent Rs.850 on crostini, garlic bread, pizza and calzone. That’s four times the cost of an average meal for two in Ahmedabad and eight times the cost of dinner in a road-side dhabba. We were not, suffice to say, surrounded by a cross section of Gujarati society once other dinners began to arrive. The food was good, though the crostini were overly oily and the calzone immense. We were both defeated in the end, which rarely happens. The capers, olives and mushrooms I welcomed as if long lost friends though…and then ate with pleasure.

On Saturday, the day of a festival called Rakhi where sisters give their brothers a bracelet in imitation of a goddess, we both worked in the morning again, sitting either side of our plastic table in the living room. In the late afternoon we set out on a walk, a ‘power walk’ to use Dani’s term, with the aim of getting some exercise and ending up at Star Bazaar. It started to darken after half an hour of us starting out. After several twists and turns down seemingly identical residential streets, we began to think we had gone wrong somewhere, as no supermarket loomed at the end of any of them. At last we could make out the glaring spot lights of the building between two tower blocks. Making our approach through a part of Satellite we had not ventured into before, we followed a road that cut through two open and empty lots, overgrown with weeds and scattered with rubbish and building debris. In one, two peacocks screeched in the dark. As we walked, large bats flapped through the darkening sky above us, their total wing span perhaps a foot a half, their bodies moving lazily through the air. I counted more than fifteen of them. Within a short while we finally found ourselves opposite Star Bazaar, thankfully with our blood un-drained.