How to Disappoint Indians by Being Vegetarian
One of the engineers on my team has a cousin in Delhi, and we start the day by texting her to see whether she’s still willing to meet up with us. We had already agreed in Vietnam that we wouldn’t try to fit Agra and the Taj Mahal into our weekend in Delhi—it’s a 3-4 hour ride one way, thus an all-day affair, and we were grateful to our past selves that we didn’t have to wake up to make a 6AM bus and spend yet another day on our asses.
After breakfast and confirming plans with Meenahski, we lock our door using an extra extra padlock and explore the hotel a bit before departing to find an ATM and walk around the Red Fort and some of the other older Mughur buildings, from the bygone era in which Shah Jahan conquered his enemies, established himself on the seat of the throne of the Mughur Empire, and went about building a walled city, Shahjahanabad, also referred to as Old Delhi.
Even the haveli, our hotel, hearkens back to that era. The havelis of Old Delhi are mostly decrepit and lay in ruin now, abandoned mansions in the middle of a city that has moved on from them and their former inhabitants. Our haveli, Haveli Dharampura (so named after the neighbourhood in which it sits), has been thoughtfully and lovingly restored, and evidence of that exists in pictures proudly displayed throughout the building. The architecture must have come with the invaders, and follows a Muslim/Arabic pattern that reminds me of our Riad in Marrakesh and Hiliki House in Stonetown. I love the arrangement of a central courtyard, with stories of rooms ringing it, and a private roof that affords both views of the surrounding area and somewhere to congregate that’s still somewhat private. It’s almost like the house in Downton Abbey, and I’d design my own house like this if I didn’t think it would pose such a problem with New England winters.
We depart the hotel and walk down a somewhat larger road to where Google says an ATM is. The ATM is located up a flight of stairs, and when we arrive we’re told it’s broken. Somewhat annoyed, I kick myself for forgetting that things working is never a guarantee, and for not having a backup plan. Luckily Matthias does though, so we turn off the main road towards where Google says the next ATM is.
If you’ve never used Google Maps in an old quarter of an old foreign city, you won’t know that the scale of streets can throw Americans off. In America, a street on Google Maps is navigable by car, and things like the alleys between the main streets in Back Bay are designated by thinner brown lines and not the grey lines of streets. Not so here. Grey is the line for the street we take to the ATM, and it is the most chaotic and frantic road I have ever walked down in my life.
We find the ATM via educated guess. It’s not a wall ATM on the outside of a building, and the space isn’t big enough for the both of us. I insert my card and a tiny prayer that this transaction will go as intended. I am pleased to receive both money and my card, and no trouble from any of the men waiting outside.
After accomplishing our goal, we set out back up the lane—calling it a street feels both generous and disingenuous, yet it is wider than the gulley that leads to our hotel. We wander to some steps we saw and realise it’s a mosque. When we determine not to waste paper on a religious institution supporting segregation, we walk back down the steps towards the Red Fort, passing an apparently makeshift Hindu shrine that may or may not be an intimidating, anti-secular police station? on the side of the street on the way. A man rings a bell and removes his shoes before entering the shrine to offer worship. Religions could use more garlands of flowers.
We walk towards the Red Fort and realise that we have to cross a busy street to get there. Applying what we learned in Vietnam, we resolve to ‘just keep walking,’ and hold hands in what I’m sure is an unacceptably risqué way as we step out into traffic, mimicking the pairs of men doing the same even as we use them as meat shields. Here we are on the island in the middle of the road before wading into the traffic that you see here. Traffic never stops; there are no designated walk signs, and any time is an acceptable time to cross the street for the brave.
[Update: Holy shit, this very sketchy site worked.]
We waive off street hawkers and what my Tanzanian friends called what I could only understand as ‘fly letchers’ there. I forget that Matthias hasn’t had to balance decorum and privacy in public, and even as we walked here he turned and nodded to me, thanking me for warning him about the beggars as he waved off small girl after small girl, barefoot and walking along asking for rupees, Euros, anything. The men around the Red Fort offer us rides in their rickshaws or tuktuks (which they call Delhi helicopters for a reason we still haven’t put together), guided tours, anything at all at a ‘good price.’ Matthias, ever the polite and respectful person, engages with each of them, apologising and thanking them anyway even though we won’t be using their services. Occasionally I step in to make eyes and yell a sharp, ‘Maybe later,’ from behind my mask before turning away. I’ve no patience for persistent men who don’t know how to take no for an answer.
Admittedly it’s a bit confusing trying to figure out where to go to enter the Red Fort. The men all said to the right, so we know it’s to the left, but there are no signs anywhere, and the really confusing thing is the carnival that’s set up on the lawn in front of it.
Eventually we find our way in. (You have to scan a QR code and buy tickets on your phone, then pass through a segregated screening/security line.) unlike most places, you both enter and exit through the gift shop, but once we do, we wander around appreciating the architecture, the history, and the music house where musicians would announce the entrance of distinguished guests.
We realise we should probably get going, it having passed 13:30 and us having to meet Meenakshi, her husband Vaibhav, and their son Poku at 2. We text her and are relieved to know they’re running late, too. We somehow find our Uber on the same road we crossed earlier and I’m delighted to find it newly upholstered and with a working AC. We thoroughly enjoy our comfortable half-hour ride to where we’re meeting them, all for $2.
We arrive and have some time to kill, so we wander around a market on the side of the road and annoy the public servants working the bathroom in the T station when Matthias uses the 2 rupee terminal and the smallest denomination we have is a 500 bill. (Spoiler alert: We shamelessly haggle down to the $0.03 price for the loo and emerge victorious after they try to claim we owe them for a poop instead of just a piss. That man walked into the stall right after Matthias to ‘casually check’ on the restroom and we all know it; if he had takes more than a piss then we would have owned up to it.)
After wandering we meet up with Meenakshi and her family. We have a wonderful time with them that day, shopping and then discussing politics and religion over beers. The place we’ve met at is closed, so we go to another part of town for a similar set of shops, run by the Indian government and meant to showcase the traditional handicrafts of each state in India. If New Hampshire had one, I hope it would just be a liquor and wine outlet. Those shops prove to be too expensive, but I do get a free opportunity to use a toilet with no running water and no seat (and needless to say, certainly no toilet paper), so that checks off another box.
I should mention that all the while we’re doing this, Meenakshi and Vaibhav are being the most wonderful hosts. Vaibhav orders us some chaat from a seller on the side of the road, who hoists his mat down off the top of his head and mixes us a lentil snack. (Vaibhav says it’s safe to eat because lentils are cooked and can’t spoil, but I uncharacteristically still take a pill that’s supposed to prevent travellers’ diarrhoea discreetly with the snack.) We have chai from little clay cups and try some eggplant dish, Vaibhav making fun of us and lamenting that we’re vegetarian while we rib him about not being able to tolerate spicy food.
We still haven’t accomplished the shopping that I want to do, and it’s getting dark. I resolve that it’ll be fine if I don’t find anything and I’ll magic some free time out of nowhere in Indore to shop. Vaibhav ends up chatting up a man hawking those little brass wire contraptions that you can fold into various shapes and he says he’ll take us to an emporium with good quality products and good prices. The streetseller’s English is far better than our Hindi, and Matthias and I chat with him in between Matthias turning to me and muttering under his breath that this is where we die, we are walking to our certain deaths. I pause and fall a few steps behind the group to take a picture of some lovely pink petals that have fallen from their flowers on a tree.
In a surprising turn of events, we aren’t being led to our deaths, we do find the emporium, and we accomplish most of the shopping I set out to do. I feel bad for making everyone wait, but Vaibhav is busy tiring out Poku and Meenakshi shops herself in between haggling for me. Matthias find a fresh chain that maybe we’ll return some day to drop the few hundred dollars they were asking for on it.
After shopping, we leave our things in the car and leave the keys with what I assume is a valet, only he works at a parking lot where cars are parked three deep. We approach a beer cafe—Vaibhav’s reason for coming out—but realise we’ve left Poku’s shoes at a sweets stall we stopped at on the walk back from the emporium to the car, where Meenakshi paused to buy us sweets. They were Poku’s favourite pair of shoes, and as he’s quite savvy for the four-ish-year-old that he is, he begins to lament the loss of them. There’s nothing that solves problems quite like shopping for shoes, so that’s what we do. Here we are in Delhi, inside a Crocs store shopping for shoes for a four-year-old. We wouldn’t have it any other way; this is exactly what travelling a foreign land should be.
A few hours and a few beers later, we walk back to the car, offering our profuse thanks to Meenakshi and Vaibhav for spending their weekend with us, and for their unparalleled hospitality. As we’re walking, they ask us if we’ve heard of paan. We nod, yet are unprepared for what had been described to us as ‘lighting it on fire and putting it in your mouth.’ We try it—the mildly stimulating betel leaves wrapped around something sweet, all kept over ice until the insides are lit on fire and popped into your mouth. It has a vague menthol taste, and while I don’t mind chewing it, I spit it into the napkin provided and drop that in the trash before I’m stuck in an Uber for half an hour with nowhere to spit it, despite the fact that spitting is so common here there are signs prohibiting it that remind offenders of the fine they’ll face if they do so.
We leave Meenakshi and her family with promises to host them any time they’re in Boston, and with insistences that we’ll send Poku plenty of New Balances, his favourite shoes. I doubt they’d allow it, but we owe them for going so out of their way to be so hospitable, and I owe Madhur for making this connection.
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