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

There is surely no better way to get to know a new city than to stay with a friend or a friend of a friend who knows the place well. On my first trip to Delhi since I passed through on the way to the Himalayas in 1999, I stayed with friends of Nishant, one of my colleagues. These two bachelors, who had studied with Nishant at prestigious Delhi University, rented a flat on the top floor of a featureless housing block somewhere South of Central Delhi. The block was reached from the busy road through a series of narrow and overshadowed lanes, lined with parked bikes and cars, and uneven underfoot. Out on the road smoke hung in the air, the morning sun shone down on omelet stalls and chai stands, and a noisy crush of people at an alcohol shop spilled into the street. But in the lanes it was quiet and shaded, and we saw only a few people on the way to the flat. Ascending a steep flight of stairs that spiraled up anti-clockwise we passed three doorways before reaching the top of the building.

Now, whether this flat was indicative of bachelor flats across India, I don’t know. But it was certainly an atypical bachelor’s flat in one regard: extremely low levels of cleanliness. It was seriously grimy. All the light-switches were covered in the black grime of ages of unclean hands, the bathroom walls had a veneer of slick soapy grease and the many books piled tightly into bookshelves were caked in grey dust. It was a nice place though. There was a recluse-like feel to the flat; it was an intellectual’s hide-out in an otherwise unremarkable residential colony. The books gathering dust reflected the opposing politics of the two residents: one was keeping the Marxist credo alive; the other was a fan of free-markets. Both were Biharis like my colleague and all three came from the same small area in Bihar. They had studied History together and remained in close touch still.

We had dinner that evening in the flat with only one of Nishant’s friends. He ordered in dal, subji and rotis, which we ate sitting on the tiled floor of the room that doubled as the bedroom of the other occupant. To accompany these staples was a homemade Bihari pickle. This was very hot and came in an old and not very clean plastic jar. It had been made by someone’s mother and matured for years in that jar. When it was hot, I was told, the jar was placed out in the sun to further preserve the contents. I decided not to overindulge.

On our second day in Delhi my colleague and I were to be part of a field visit to several primary schools in slum areas. We were helping with a recruitment process and part of the two day event involved a ‘live’ group exercise, where information on school needs had to be collected by each team of potential new staff members. We left for the meeting place by auto. During the 30 minute drive we were passed on a busy main road by a newly cleaned Mercedes sporting UN plates. Further down the same road a brand new Toyota saloon also overtook our auto and it too had the distinctive UN plates. This seemed a surprising coincidence until we passed the large offices of the World Health Organisation, into the entrance of which several large cars were turning.

The field visit was extremely interesting: I was seeing Delhi slums for the first time and witnessing young middle class urbanites encountering an environment largely alien to them too. Some were obviously ill at ease, though more with the schoolchildren than the (not actually extreme) poverty evident around them. Others were happier in the school environment and confident interacting with teachers, the headmaster and the often rowdy kids. I had a rather embarrassing episode within the first five minutes of entering the school, when I stepped into one of the classrooms and was mobbed by a mass of blue-clothed children who had dashed forward from their seats to touch my feet. There were too many of them pressed together for me to restrain them, but I felt extremely awkward at this traditional sign of submissive respect and did what I could to at least stop any of them falling over in the crush around my legs. In other classes this scene was thankfully avoided and the kids just stood and saluted when I entered the classroom. My response was to clasp my hands together formally and say ‘namaste’. In one class each child in term left the safety of their desk to come up to me at the front of the class and introduce themselves. They were not very confident in English and said their names so quickly and quietly I struggled to hear them, though I picked up the names I was familiar with and they had fun: most prepared to approach me by nudging their neighbours and giggling.

We spent about two hours on the field visits and then caught autos back to the office we were using as a base. I sat in the front of one, next to the driver, and was pressed up near the glass windshield. The side mirror a few inches to the left of my head was printed with the words ‘objects in the mirror may appear closer than they are’.

We left Delhi the next day, catching a different train back to Ahmedabad from Nizamuddin Station. Nishant helpfully accompanied me to the station in the cycle rickshaw he flagged down near his friend’s flat. It was a sunny day and the rickshaw wallah worked up a sweat leaning down onto the pedals to keep the tricycle going. It was a slow journey but we had plenty of time and rolled up to the station entrance eventually. I had thoroughly enjoyed my second experience of Delhi, a city I much preferred now I had visited it again.