Dicing with death in Delhi

You could read a score of books and watch a dozen movies but nothing prepares you for the reality that is India. You have to go there to believe it – and I’m not sure you could ever understand it. There’s just so much of everything and everything becomes too much.

It all started with us flying into the heat of Delhi late at night, facing long delays landing and waiting an hour to collect our luggage while every bag was checked as it came off the plane. Everything went relatively smoothly after that for a while, we managed to find the special ticket booth and bought our taxi voucher and headed confidently for the door. That’s when we made a fatal error – we dithered. Had the man in the ticket booth said to take any black and white cab or any black and yellow cab? As we turned around to go back and ask, a sea of people swarmed towards us and at that moment we were taken in tow by a taxi tout. Not that we realized that at first, but it soon became clear when we were bundled into an old car and hurtled through the dark streets in the pouring rain with two Indians in the front seat and nothing declaring the car was a taxi.

We had no idea where we were going as the car sped along, weaving in and out and around all manner of cars, lorries, buses and vans trundling along the motorway. Glancing anxiously at each other, we furtively hid all our valuables in case our worst fears were realized. We came to an official-looking road barrier and the boys in front said that this was the street our hotel was in, but the road was closed because of flooding. As the rain was torrential it was easy to believe. There was a barrier across the next street they tried, so they said they would take us to a “Government Information Office”. This was down a dark alley with various shifty looking people hanging around. Things were getting seriously scary now. I went inside while Rob stayed with the bags and the boys. A smooth talking fellow phoned our hotel – I was informed they had no reservation for us; the rooms were all flooded and so on. I said rubbish, stormed back outside and insisted we be taken directly to our hotel which I had booked through a tour group – and Rob started mentioning police. Luckily we had heard of this scam and stood our ground – because they then without any further nonsense drove us straight to our hotel. By now it was 1 o’clock in the morning and it was with an enormous sense of relief we checked in to the Hotel Goodtimes, thanking our lucky stars we hadn’t been robbed or murdered.

In the morning we were greeted by a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds in the chaotic wet and muddy streets and were instantly and thereafter constantly harassed by auto rickshaw drivers, those persistent pests. We dodged potholes, puddles, people, bikes, cars, motorbikes, dogs, trucks, rubbish and more auto rickshaws as we bravely headed for the shops.

Later in the day we hired a proper fixed-price taxi, and that’s when we decided you had to have the patience of a saint to survive the traffic in Delhi – the traffic our driver had to negotiate was unbelievable, horns honking continuously, cars going every which way, people, bikes, buses, dogs - even a pig. We visited Jantar Mantar where a guide forced himself on us and charged us way way way too many rupees for his services that we didn’t even want. But he did do a thorough job of explaining how these astronomical observatory structures built in the 1700’s worked – as well as telling us how many years he had guided and how much people valued him and paid him! We finally managed to extricate ourselves from the shameless fellow, found our waiting taxi and were driven past the beautiful Parliament buildings, India Gate, flash houses and hovels, the fancy shopping areas of Connaught Place and through rough looking shops selling all manner of goods. The rain and the thought of fighting off vendors and guides made us reluctant to sally forth into these areas or Central Park, and we soon headed back to the sanctuary of our hotel.

Next day we watched a barefoot woman in a lovely sari load a dozen bricks on her head and carry them up several flights of stairs to the top floor of a decidedly dodgy looking building under construction. It made your heart bleed.

We joined our tour group, met our nice companions, and shortly thereafter headed off for what I can only call an experience - travelling on the metro. You know all those movies you see of people being squashed into a carriage? Well, that’s the truth of it. It was my worst nightmare or so I thought, literally being pushed and crushed into the train, my arms pinned at my sides, my diaphragm unable to move, my face in someone’s armpit. But there was worse to come -our second bad experience in Delhi – Rob had his wallet stolen from the side-pocket on his trousers. He never felt a thing. Kiss goodbye to USD $500 and SND $175 – about a thousand dollars NZ. We were upset and disheartened and it was hard to enjoy the incredibleness of walking through the seething crush of humanity in Old Delhi. We visited the oldest mosque in Delhi leaving our shoes at the door and walking barefoot across the filthy ground, the ladies amongst us swathed in pink spotted garments.

A Sikh temple was next; this time we all had to don orange headscarves – Rob looked just lovely in his. From the terrace we looked down on the mind-boggling crowds in the streets below, into which we were once again thrust, wending our way along narrowing, crowded market alleys, a myriad of colorful things for sale. An interesting feeling came over me after a while; it was as though I shut off, closed down, I couldn’t bear to look at the masses of people anymore. At the end of the network of alleys we had to pass a massive stinking rubbish pile and then face the return metro ride, our guide Raj jamming the train doors open with his foot and hauling us out from the tangled commuters at our stop.

Oh woe is India: the searing heat; the lack of infrastructure; so many people sleeping on the edge of streets, on little platforms or on the ground, wrapped in dirty blankets or filthy rags; piles of rubbish everywhere; beggars – mainly women with their pathetic little children and babies; religious men muttering Namaste to us; bright coloured clothes of countless people all trying to sell the same range of unwanted items; skinny dogs; monkeys; minor birds with their bright eyes; people with beautiful eyes; people with shifty eyes; women and men in separate queues to get on the trains; lots more men than women in the streets; every single person wanting a piece of you…

As Gael on our tour group said – “just adjust”.