Delhi Days

I've spent the last few days here in Delhi, doing Delhi-things. A quieter weekend than most, but a good one.

I've been bringing along my little Canon Powershot in hopes that I'll remember to take pictures of daily life, but I've only rarely been succeeding. However, here's a picture of a major intersection near my house, right by the flyover for the highway and in between Neeti Bagh and Defence Colony, where we go for good food, good desserts, and American groceries.

It's getting hot here in Delhi, so the autorickshaw rides provide a much-appreciated breeze and shade from the sun. I think that's still my preferred method of transportation.

Speaking of autos, I don't know if it's something about me or something about auto-wallahs, but these days I've been getting a lot of "meter se" - price by meter. I also realized that if the auto-wallah doesn't name a price when I say where I want to go, I should just get in and sit down rather than asking how much he's going to charge. Then I point at the meter, say I want the price by meter, and most of the time they switch it on right away. By that time, they've started driving and don't want to risk losing a passenger because they charge too much.

I was going to take pictures at Ramjas one day last week when I was there for classes, but then I remembered how nosy all the students are. Classes are done this week, so the campus should be relatively empty. I'll still be going back to meet with teachers for the independent study portion of my two Ramjas courses, so I'll bring my camera along on one of those days without having to answer a million questions about who I am, where I'm from, and why I'm taking pictures. However, I did take some pictures of these interesting flowers because I see them everywhere:

They come from some sort of tree, and I keep forgetting to ask someone what their name is. They're strange creations; they are these huge, fleshy flowers that fall of the tree right after they've bloomed. They haven't started withering at all when they drop, which is rather peculiar. They're all over the sidewalks, though, so I step on them on a regular basis. My roommate said it feels something like what she imagines stepping on a dead rat to be. I don't think of it in such a grotesque way, but there is something a little eery about it. These flowers behave strangely.

When I'm traveling between Ramjas and the IES Centre in Nizamuddin, I get off at a metro stop by Connaught Place, right in the center of New Delhi. My auto route always goes past India Gate Park, one of the most famous places in the city. It's a giant circular green space with playgrounds, paddleboats on tiny man-made ponds, and lots and lots of ice cream wallahs. The focal point of the park is India Gate itself:

I've heard it referred to as India's Arc de Triomphe. Guess I'll have to go see the latter so I can make my own comparison. :) At any rate, it's a nice part of the city, and part of my daily routine.

At the Centre, we have a black cat who is a stray but basically lives at the YMCA because Cate feeds her. She's pregnant right now and is very noisy, and she likes to come sit in on our classes, which my Hindi teacher doesn't like. She shoos the cat away in very terse Hindi. But she always comes back.

I'm going to steal one of the kitties if they're born before I leave. I want a kitten! And a puppy, and a monkey, and a lizard, and those cute kids from Abheypur...

At any rate.

Another of the very cool things that happens in Delhi is actually just a few minutes of walking from my house. It's called Thursday Market (for obvious reasons: once a week, on Thursdays...), and it is one of the most amazing things in Delhi. The markets are all interesting and fun and cheap, but this one has probably anything I could possibly want or need: food, produce, jewelry, fabric, underwear, safety pins, dishes, cosmetics, bootleg copies of Bollywood CDs and DVDs, spices, posters, incense and puja thalis...the list goes on and on.

This is a spice-wallah. He'll probably be my best friend right before I leave because I want to bring spices home with me, but nothing's labeled and I'm not good enough to identify all of the jars of delicious-smelling powders.

A very small glimpse of the produce section of the market. It's things like this that make me really wish I had a full kitchen to use here...I love raw fruits and vegetables, but it would be awesome to be able to cook with this stuff.

One of my favorite Indian sweets is jalebi, and there is nothing better than watching someone make them streetside, then consuming fresh, hot, sticky, greasy goodness. Like fried dough, only better.

***

On Friday, after an uneventful mid-semester group check-in with Dhyan Summers, the eccentric white woman IES wanted us to have available as our therapist, the whole bunch of us went to India Gate with Harini, our teacher (who will be reading this later as part of my Cities of Delhi project - hi Harini!). We wandered around for a short while and got ice cream, then headed over to Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President's house. It's massive - 350 rooms, and the whole complex covers an astounding number of acres for being in the middle of a very large city. Lutyens, the architect of most of British New Delhi, certainly figured out how to do grand displays of power. There are some nifty features, like the base of a statue of Lord Buddha in the main ballroom/hall being in a straight line from India Gate and the base being at the same elevation as the top of India Gate (because the President's House is built on a hill). There was a museum with lots of portraits of important British people, a kitchen museum of presidential kitchen gadgets, and a museum with all the gifts given to India from leaders of other countries. The UAE gave an outrageous jeweled necklace glittering with all kinds of precious stones. The USA gave a glass bowl. Way to go, America.

Something extraordinarily cool about the visit was making our friend Kashika pose in front of a huge portrait of her great-great grandfather...who happened to be the first president of India. How cool is that? Even though the president in India doesn't really have power (it's all the Prime Minister), that is still pretty stupendously awesome.

My favorite part of the visit was the sprawling Mughal gardens. Impeccably well maintained, bursting with color because spring has hit full force in Delhi, and so, so pretty. I wish I had pictures to share, but we weren't allowed to bring cameras or cell phones past the reception area. 

Friday evening we just hung out at home, enjoying the warm evening up on the terrace and the fact that no one was jumping on a bus or a train at some crazy hour of day or night.

Saturday morning I got up early to do homework, then in the afternoon went to the American Center library to get a membership (which turns out is probably a waste of rs. 400, since I don't think they actually have any resources I'll be using), and then went to the most fantastic restaurant in Connaught Place. It's called Nizam's Kathi Kabab, and those people are food geniuses. They take already delicious Indian food, mix it with a fried egg, and wrap it all up in naan, which they then also fry. Sooooo indescribably good, and pretty cheap. 

That pretty much brings me up to date. I spent today doing productive things like homework and housing forms and all that kind of fun stuff, taking advantage of the fact that my roommate went up to the Himalayas for a few days with a friend from home that's visiting. 

As usual, there are some more pictures up on flickr of the events described here.

Namaste. :)