I found a place to sit that I have walked by a million times but have never actually noticed. I guess that’s what happens when you slow down and look. I’ve lived in Abbotsford my whole life but there’s probably places there too that I have never noticed. It’s just the way things are I guess. But anyway, I’m living in Delhi right now, and this is about a place in Delhi.
I am situated on the sidewalk, sitting on a bench under a big tree and leaning against a short wall, behind which is a park. All the parks here are walled in, and almost all of them have only one way in or one way out. I had originally intended to sit in the park and write this, but there was nowhere to sit in the shade, and it’s getting hot in Delhi these days. So, I walked back out the one entrance and onto the sidewalk, looking for a place to sit as I did so. Then I saw the bench here, so I took a seat.
A row of parked cars separates me from the road, and beyond them a small fence separates one half of the road from the other. On the other side of the road are the entranceways to the mighty Crowne Plaza Hotel, and the local Community Centre. Down the road to my left is Mathura Rd., the main highway in our area, and down the road to my right is the way I will eventually walk home.
To my immediate left on the sidewalk, a man has set up a small barber shop. These outdoor salons can be seen all over the city, and while I haven’t taken the time yet, I may one day choose to get my hair cut by one of these street-scissors. However, I may choose not to as well. The thought of an old man who speaks no English running a huge straight-edge razor under my chin makes me a little nervous. I’ll probably continue getting haircuts from Andrea. However, it seems like these outdoor barbers have an interesting thing going on. Here, two beat up old chairs sit facing the brick wall of the park, and two rectangle mirrors lean against the fence on the ledge of the wall, reflecting the faces of his patrons while the barber (in his bright blue shirt) silently snips away. The fixings, his various gels and creams and scissors and combs and so on all sit on a piece of newspaper that he has draped over the top of the wall, waiting to be used. He looks at me suspiciously, and I will find out later that I am sitting on his bench. His current customer becomes satisfied with a job well done, and dropping some few rupees into the barber’s hand, he walks away.
Oh great! I didn’t bother to check this bench and wall very well, did I? I am now crawling with bugs, from head to toe. As I stand and brush myself off, the barber cracks a smile and tells me they won’t bite. The chai-walla to my right chuckles as well and goes off in Hindi, and all I can pick up is the word “later,” and I shudder to think what that means.
The chai-walla is an institution here in Delhi. I am convinced that they are both the cities strength, and its Achilles heel. Take away the chai-walla, and the economy would crumble. The chai-walla is the trader of tea, the connoisseur of caffeine, the sultan of sip-able spice, the dealer of daily information and the most abundantly present presence on the streets of Delhi (or on the buses, trains, and in the parks). Wherever you are, you are no more than a hundred steps from a chai-walla. A horde of men will invariably be crowded around them, paying 3 or sometimes 5 rupees to drink fresh Indian chai out of a small handless glass cup, their fingers wrapped gingerly around the rim of the glass, desperately trying to escape the heat. They sip carefully at first, their pinky finger curled slightly in order to tip the glass from its base, the only other location on the glass that is cool enough to touch. Then as soon as the chai is manageable they chug the rest and hop back on their motorcycle, carrying on along their way. The whole scene takes not more than five minutes to play out.
The chai-walla beside me has no table or booth. He squats with his back to the wall, and looks up to his customers every so often in the midst of his flurry of activity. This man does good business. All he has is a small gas burner sitting on the dusty sidewalk, and various containers of spices and tea scattered around him. A small wash basin is found just behind him to the right, and here he half-heartedly rinses out the glasses before re-filling them and passing them on to the next patron. He sells to long-ji wearing rickshaw-wallas and suit-wearing business men indiscriminately, but he won’t sell to me. I don’t like Indian chai. I am an anomaly, I know, but I just can’t handle it. I can drink it if I have to, like when I’m invited in to someone’s house and they bust out the chai from the kitchen. But if there’s a way to get out of it, I will.
Beside the chai-walla there is a paan-walla. I hate paan. Paan is the betel-nut chew that India is famous for. However, cast off all notions of old men wrapping the gooey red nut in a banana leaf (or whatever they use). This is a multi-billion rupee industry. Paan is now produced in rolls of tear-away tea-bag sized plastic rip-open packages, and the typical paan-walla has hundreds of these rolls of chew dangling down from a small pole, ready to be ripped off and sold. Not only does it come in ready-to-chew packages, it also now comes in a plethora of flavours. Often they contain tobacco or other narcotics (legal or not), but they even have paan for kids, or breath-freshener paan.
All over the city at all times of the day, men can be seen tearing open the little packages and emptying them into their month. Now, I’m a live and let live kind of guy, but that’s only for things that don’t affect me. If these men kept their paan to themselves, I wouldn’t mind so much. However, they spit. They spit like camels, all over this city. We will be sitting in the back of an auto-rickshaw, and the auto-walla will lean out the side of the vehicle and unleash the most disgusting steam of chunky red paan from out his mouth, and a sharp “splick” will sound as the stream comes into contact with the cement, leaving a thick pile of red goo splattered where it hits. These red slicks are everywhere in this city. Sidewalks, streets, alleys, park paths, etc. Every time we walk we watch our step, just as much for the disgusting puddles of paan as for the stray-dog feces. Paan should be outlawed. I could probably go on and on about how disgusting this habit is, but you’d probably never get it. I’ll just leave it at this: I’d rather spend all day around smokers than one minute around a paan chewer.
Across from the paan-walla is the areas most significant landmark. Crowne Plaza Hotel. This behemoth towers above the local development, and can often be seen from many miles away (depending of course, on the state of the cities dense smog). Rich business travelers and foreign dignitaries frequent this 5-star dormitory, as it promises proximity to important places and peaceful sleeps for all its guests. Surrounding the complex is a 12-15 foot high wall, and there are only 2 gates. One that goes in, and one that goes out. Within these walls lies a miniature America, Indian style. It is a peaceful place to eat a way-too-expensive pastry or have an air-conditioned respite from the mad-house that is the Delhi outside its walls. As an added bonus, our local travel agent has his office in the basement of the hotel, giving me an excuse to visit little-America every once in a while.
Getting in to little-America, however, can sometimes be almost as difficult as it is to get into Big-America. Besides the run of the mill security gate and the routine security checks on every vehicle that enters the premesis, there stands a battalion of security guards, some hired security, some police, and quite often some military officers. After the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, a sand-bag bunker was erected in front of the main gate, and it has been there ever since. There are often 5-6 soldiers armed with semi-automatic assault rifles sitting behind its walls, chattering away about this or that, perhaps waiting for a chance to spring into action at a moments notice. As I walk by these men they eye me from top to bottom (I look Israeli, remember?). But with no probable cause, they let me pass, and I walk up to the front door of the hotel. Here I am frisked and my bag is checked. Then a quick swipe with a metal detector gives me the final clearance and I am in. This may sound extreme, and perhaps it was for me when I first got here, but by now it is a normal occurrence. To get into any mall or government park or market, one needs to pass at the very least through a stand-alone metal-detecting arch, and often this is coupled with a frisking and a bag check. I am quite used to this. They even sometimes get me to show them my phone so they can be sure that it is not a trigger for a bomb, as this technology is what has recently been used in several attacks across India. These security checks may seem out of place in a thriving metropolis like Delhi, but they are a constant reminder of the September bombings across this city, and the November attacks in Mumbai.
Beside Crowne Plaza sits the New Friends Colony Community Centre. This is the hub of entertainment and fast-food or fine-dining for the surrounding district. On its maze-like yard one can find restaurants like Subway, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Dominoes, as well as numerous high class dining or Indian fast food chains such as Nirula’s and Fast Trax. It also houses the two largest coffee chains in India (there is no Starbucks in India), Café Coffee Day, and Barista Café. The Community Centre (or CC as it is called), is the place to be in the evenings, and it is crawling with groups of guys and groups of girls, (and every once in a while a group of guys AND girls), all looking for a place to hang out or eat. There are also general stores, stationary stores, photo-labs, and a plethora of small hole-in-the-wall style Indian diners, each with its own varying level of sketchiness. Some we will actually eat at. Some we will eat at, but only from their vegetarian menu, and some we refuse to enter. Throughout the course of our week we will likely eat at CC at least 5 times, sometimes more, depending on how our budget is doing. If it is not feeling very well, we’ll probably just walk over to the market street which is much closer to our home, and we’ll buy ourselves a bag full of samosa’s for 20 rupees.
Well, that about covers that. Besides, a local security guard has come over and has sat down right beside me. He is staring at my page as I write this, so I guess I will probably engage him in conversation for a while and then get on my feet and carry on down the road. There’s plenty more to see in this great city, so until next time, thanks for reading.
Kyle.
No comments:
Post a Comment