Around The World in a 60s Daze...: Incredible India

Dear Family and Friends,

Incredible India! This is the motto Tourism India has chosen to entice visitors to this amazing country. More than one billion people toil and roil in this, the second most populous, and seventh largest in geographic area, country in the world.

India is a country of considerable beauty ranging from the snow capped Himalayan Mountains to western deserts, to beautiful beaches, to forest lands and to the dazzling green paddies of rice in the south. It has 5,000 years of recorded, often glorious, history and it is the birthplace of four of the world's major religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. As well, India has a generally working democracy forged from a culturally, linguistically and genetically diverse population.

Incredible it is for sure. But also in ways not intended by Tourism India. It is simply not possible to ignore the incredible squalor. Arriving in India is an assault on the senses more stupefying than anywhere else I have been. For the third time I have now come to visit, and each arrival takes my breath away, nothing seems to prepare one for the chaos one confronts, not even previous visits.

Me & My Rickshaw, Delhi

I arrived late on Valentine’s Day and ended up at the Ananda Hotel just off Pusa Road in an area known as Karol Bagh, a short distance from both Old Delhi and Connaught Place of New Delhi. On arrival at the Ananda I immediately went to the rooftop for a comforting cold beer and watched all the fireworks lighting up the sky in celebration of the many weddings that apparently always take place on this day. The street noise and hundreds of dogs barking five stories below filled the air.

There is a new sky train system in place now in Delhi, having opened two years ago. It is a welcome addition to the city’s chaotic transportation system, but like all things in India, it has that unique ability of looking old almost instantly, a bit worn, and certainly showing the absence of any cleaning since it opened.
Even with the sky train in service, traffic and street life in Delhi remain unchanged. Squalor is everywhere, broken sidewalks, garbage, litter, rotting vegetables; traffic of auto rickshaws (tuk-tuks), bicycles, pedal rickshaws, scooters, push carts, horse carts, donkey carts, carts with bullock power under the hood, Tata cars, Tata trucks, Maruti Suzukis, even the odd Maharinda tractor; and everywhere cows, cow shit, dogs, dog shit, some pigs, and pig…, well you know; shoe shiners, betel nut spitters, ear cleaners, touts and louts, the maimed, the lamed, the insane, tall Sikhs in turbans, beggars in rags, women in beautiful saris, two pound steamers, spiritualist dreamers and mystic sadhus; the air is filled with the unceasing din of horns honking, honking, honking, brakes squealing, dogs barking, people shouting, music blaring.

At night hundreds of street people lay out on the sidewalks covered in a sheet, passersby walk around them. Others make fires out of the garbage littering the streets, the acrid smell of burning plastic adding to the other stenches and smells, sewage, spices, cooking odors, cow poop, sweet incense, automobile exhausts. Add to that the industrial pollution, and you have an overwhelming mélange so pungent that you hesitate to inhale.

The rest is indescribable.

But for all that, the people are friendly, inquisitive, and helpful. It’s a strange mix.

In a few places trees have been planted, forlorn scrawny twigs, which are protected by wire fencing. Signs are hung on them reading

Clean Delhi, Green Delhi

Surely one of the more profoundly optimistic, and hopeless, campaigns you might imagine.

I spent five days in Delhi, mostly idle wandering, acclimatizing myself, but I did hire a car and driver for one day of sightseeing. It’s a bit of an indulgent way to see the city, rather than a bus tour, but I did need some indulgence I can tell you. My driver was Shahid, a nice young man who was taught to drive by his uncle, and whose most endearing trait was his reluctance to honk, he almost never did, and he shook his head sadly at every blast around us. Our first stop was in Old Delhi at Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque and apparently the last architectural monument of Shah Jahan of Taj Mahal fame. This three hundred and fifty year old edifice is so large it can accommodate 25,000 worshipers in its courtyard and offers great views of the hazy Delhi skyline.

Shah Jahan was the second to last in the line of the six famous Mughals who ruled India during the 16th and 17th centuries and who left a legacy of great forts and shrines. Jama Masjid overlooks another of Shah Jahan’s contributions, the massive Red Fort. The Fort’s walls stretch over a mile and one-half and are, in places, over 100 feet high. It remains a very impressive sight to this day. This was the seat of the Peacock Throne until it was carted off to Iran in 1739 where it last rested on the head of the Shah of Iran (regarded as an American stooge by Iranians) until he was overthrown, in the 1979 Iranian revolution.

We also visited several other shrines, Birla Mandir a new and quite lovely Hindu temple; the 150 foot high India Gate, an arch of triumph commemorating the deaths of 85,000 Indian soldiers, most of whom died in WWI fighting for their British governors; peaceful Humayun’s Tomb; and the Digambara Jain temple whose members traditionally wore no clothes.

But the best part of the tour for me (I can quickly weary of temples and shrines) was a walk along Chandni Chowk, the main street of Old Delhi. The small, congested street is a shopping bazaar of pure turmoil day and night. We wandered into a side lane which took us into the area where herbs and spices are offered by dozens of stalls. In one stretch, all the stalls had chili peppers of every type in huge gunny sacks, their pungency so acute it caused me to sneeze.

In previous letters home I have noted my aversion to riding in auto rickshaws (tuk-tuks), mostly because visibility is lousy, and sitting low to the ground puts you right in line of diesel exhausts. But they are the quickest way to get around and through the traffic. And one can’t help but admire the driver’s ability, and courage, weaving in and out of the traffic barely missing big trucks and buses, pedestrians, rickshaws, cows, often by mere millimeters.

On the other hand, I have also said how much I enjoy riding in the pedal rickshaws. They are not suitable for longer distances, but for a quick trip they are the best. There are always so many of them around getting one is a snap. I have also found that unlike taxis and auto rickshaws, little or no negotiation over price is necessary; they will usually suggest a price that is so cheap it would be heartless to offer less and, in the end, it always seems a bargain. I know many people feel uncomfortable with the notion of being pedaled around, that it is somehow demeaning for the rickshaw man. When I first encountered them some 20 years ago I felt that too, but I realize their labour is no more demeaning than that of any labourer, be he farmer, logger, janitor, garbage collector or whatever. And certainly no one more richly deserves the money he earns than these sinewy tough guys.

After walking along Chandni Chowk, Shahid and I caught a rickshaw to take us back to our car which we had left at the mosque. At one point, we got caught up in a total rickshaw traffic jam, nothing was moving, people were shouting, pedestrians crawled over top, motorbikes honked, everyone honked, if an inch opened up, someone would immediately squeeze into the space. It was great. But in the end we had to abandon our ride and walk.

I did mention India has a generally working democracy. It is the most populous democracy in the world. As anyone who has read the novels A Fine Balance or The White Tiger will know, politics in India has in the past been plagued by local thugs who deliver bloc votes to candidates from the major parties hoping for, and getting, political payoffs. (By the way, our word thug is an Indian word; thugs were followers of Thuggee, ritual murderers of the last century.) They have preyed on lower caste people, most of whom are illiterate and who survive on less than $1.25 per day (India ranks 128th in per capita income in the world). According to a recent Newsweek article, this electoral model is changing. National based parties have been losing power to regional players, so these thugs have seized the opportunity to get themselves elected. In a recent edition Newsweek reported that in the latest election, ‘128 of the 543 winners had faced criminal charges, including 84 cases of murder, 17 cases of robbery, 28 cases of theft and extortion. One MP alone faced 17 separate counts of murder’. Rather than ‘generally working’, one might say the democracy is ‘barely working’. Or that it is incredible.

Well that’s about it.

I hope you are all well.
Merv.