Actually Gandhi tried to get India to
stop all the public urination and defecation, but he was not very
successful.
We stopped for breakfast about 8:30 AM at a place that looked pretty
rustic and ugly. We both declined, eating cookies from our bag. This was
also the first rest stop for women since the 10:30 PM dinner stop. (They
had a couple of use-the-side-of-the-road stops during the night.)
Friday's newspaper coincidentally had an editorial about the lack of
restroom facilities for female travelers.
Most places provide water to Indians by having a pool or providing pots
filled with water. Usually a metal cup is also provided. You are expected
to drink the water without putting your lips on the cup. Either you pour
the water into your mouth directly, or you pour the water into your hand and
you drink from your hand.
The bus was supposed to get in about 8 or 9 AM and instead got to Delhi
about 10:30 AM. We had forgotten how terrible Delhi traffic is, but the bus
took until about 11:30 AM just to get to the bus station, fighting traffic
jams and losing all the way.
There are no camels in Delhi that we've seen but there are a lot more
horses than we have been seeing elsewhere. Taking an auto-rickshaw to the
hotel we were in one traffic jam caused by a horse that had collapsed under
his burden. (That reminded Mark that he had seen signs for Chetak Cement,
named for the three-legged horse. He says, I don't see signs for Chetak
Glue.)
Evelyn comments, I've been looking at pictures of Old Delhi and they
seem to be missing one constant feature--animals. It's as if the editors of
the books have air-brushed out all the cattle and horses, both of which are
ubiquitous. 'Old Delhi,' by the way, refers to the older part of the city,
not to Delhi of years ago.
Connaught Place was designed as an elegant Georgian shopping area to
replace the crowded markets of Old Delhi. Wide streets, tall columns,
elegant covered walkways of marble were at one time the height of
refinement. Now the facades are peeling, the columns carry many layers of
movie and political posters, and men sit and repair auto seats and shape
iron on the marble walkways. It may have been elegant once, but that was a
long time ago.
However, it is still a good place to stay, with lots of hotels,
restaurants, bookstores, and cinemas. (We all have our priorities.) Our
final hotel, the Hotel 55, is kind of dark and wretched (and on the second
floor, a bit of a nuisance with Evelyn's ankle), but it is the last hotel
that we will have to get and we think we can survive to the rapidly
approaching end of the trip. At Rs675, it's higher-priced than many of our
others, but not a bad deal for Delhi. Though the street outside is noisy,
the hotel itself is quiet.
By the way, by now Evelyn says her ankle doesn't hurt very much, but
after walking on it for an hour or so, it puffs up like a grapefruit. She
plans on packing elastic ankle supporters for future trips. She also says
that her three answers when she gets home will be:
- I fell down the stairs in our hotel,
- Fascinating, and
- No.
The questions will be:
- What happened to your ankle?
- Other than that, how was the trip? and
- Did you get sick?
For some reason, people always ask the last one. (However, it turned
out that the answer to the last one changed to, Only from the meal on the
flight back from Frankfurt to New York.)
After letting Evelyn prop up her foot for the first time in almost
twenty-four hours, we went out to have lunch, book tours, and shop.
Nirula's was recommend by the Lonely Planet guide. We got there and it
looked a bit too much like a Baskin-Robbins: the same colors, the ads for 21
flavors. Right across the street is a restaurant called the National
Restaurant, also recommended. (That's its name, not an official
designation.) It serves Indian food. Crossing the street is an amazing
experience. The traffic is terrible. You have a dense mix of auto-
rickshaws, motorcycles, motor scooters, cars, buses, bicycles, and more
auto-rickshaws. It has only a flashing amber light to regulate it.
The National Restaurant is known for its meat dishes, so for the first
time this trip Evelyn had meat, the half chicken tandoori. Her advice?
Stick to the vegetarian food in India. The chicken was scrawny and not
very tasty, at least compared with chicken tandoori back home. The
vegetarian food, on the other hand, has been tasty everywhere, even in
railway stations. Mark had chicken tikka. He'd heard of that before, but
did not remember what it was. It is liked spiced chicken kabobs. Good, but
nothing all that exotic. It came with onion salad. Mark complains,
Everyone else got chilis, but they figured the gringo couldn't hold his
hotsies. I had them give me two and ate them almost straight. I hope they
were suitably impressed. Indian chilis are very piquant. Few Americans
could have done what I did, but the honor of Old Glory was at stake.
Then we went to the ITDC booking office, hoping to book a morning tour
of New Delhi, an afternoon tour of Old Delhi, and a Delhi by Evening tour.
The first thing that we discovered was that there was no Delhi by Evening
tour, at least through the ITDC. Then the woman tried to convince us to
hire a car and driver for a day instead of taking the tours. It may have
been concern for Evelyn's ankle, but somehow we doubt it. We suspect there
was a commission in it somewhere. (It would have cost more than twice as
much and the driver wouldn't have been a guide.) We booked the morning for
Friday and planned to book the afternoon tour for Saturday if that worked
out.
After that we went to Nirula's. If you think it looks like a rip-off
of Baskin-Robbins on the outside, you should see the inside. The cups look
the same, they have sample spoons, they have a sheet listing the 21 flavors
of the month, and the color scheme is the same. What we think we are
seeing--someone can correct us if we are wrong--is that there seems to be no
copyright or trademark conventions enforced between India and the United
States, and in this as in so many things it is open season on Americans.
Anyway, Nirula's rips off Baskin-Robbins even more than KHAL-NAAIKAA rips
off THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE. Mark had an Indian officemate who used
to talk openly about how he intended to smuggle computers from the United
States to India. In any case, we each had two scoops of the most exotic
flavors of ice cream they had. Mark had galabo and badaam khewra; Evelyn
had zafrani badaam pista (with pistachios) and summer wine (with maraschino
cherries and candied fruit). They did have more standard flavors like
jamoca almond fudge which is, Mark says, an Indian trade name. It is
cheaper than Baskin-Robbins, at only about Rs12 (forty cents) a scoop.
After that we walked around Connaught Place looking at bookstores which
turned out to be small, until Evelyn got very frustrated (at her ankle, the
vendors, the auto-rickshaw drivers, the shoe-shine boys) and wanted to go
back to the hotel. Right about then one of the shoe-shine boys pointed out
Evelyn's shoes needed cleaning. There was a dollop of cow **** on the top
of the shoe in a position where it had to have been dropped onto, since all
of the borders of the **** were above the sole. It would have been lower on
the sole had she kicked it. The boy claimed it fell from a bird. That's
what he said. So now these enterprising young lads have taken to throwing
cow **** on us in an attempt to make money.
However, by this point Evelyn was so irritated at being pestered that
there was no way she was going to pay for a shoe-shine. She cleaned off
most of it with a piece of newspaper and she is throwing out the shoes in a
couple of days anyway. (The soles are worn through and they're basically
shot. She only kept them to wear on this trip.)
(The Cadogan guide says in one of the towns tourists were getting
bitten by rats because local boys were playing catch with them over cycle-
rickshaws, trying to catch them by the tail, and sometimes the rat fell
short. We suppose this is not quite as bad as that.)
As much as I like the Indians I work with, Mark writes, the country
is losing my 'most-favored nation' status. It is always sad when a vacation
ends, but this time in some ways are looking forward to it ending. The
forces trying to make this country hospitable to tourism are no match for
the forces working in the other direction.
Mark reports, I am seeing a side of Evelyn I rarely see as she is
talking about going after some of these people with her cane. Maybe she is
just joking. I have joked similarly, but having people throw cow **** on
you tends to change your point of view. Being lied to and cheated has much
the same effect.
We went back to the room and then went to our third Hindi movie, EK HI
RAASTA. This one seems to have attracted a mostly male crowd, but Evelyn
saw one or two women go in, so decided it was okay.
While we were waiting, we walked to a tiny used bookstore in a stall
around the corner. While Mark was browsing, a local boy started reaching
for one of Mark's lower pockets but someone else saw him and ran him off.
The pocket was empty anyway. The photo vest and chest pack make it easy for
Mark to keep all his valuables in very protected places.
Mark describes the film thusly: EK HI RAASTA was the easiest to follow
of the three films we have seen. It is supposedly adults only (rated 'A'),
but it is based on every seven-year-old kid's fantasy. Karan (a male) is
training in the Indian army. The audience knows he will make a hell of a
soldier, but various people are holding him back for their own selfish
reasons. The Colonel--played by Saeed Jaffrey, a familiar face from THE
DECEIVERS, GANDHI, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, A
PASSAGE TO INDIA, THE WILBY CONSPIRACY, 'The Far Pavilions,' and 'The Jewel
in the Crown'--because the Colonel's beautiful daughter loves him.
It turns out that Karan's chief rival Vikram is a traitor to India and
in league with some nasty enemy country setting up a base in the forest.
Vikram's uncle, whom Karan has previously won over, discovers Vikram is a
traitor and Vikram murders his uncle and frames Karan. So now Karan is
being chased by the Indian army. The nasties invade, kidnapping the Colonel
and his beautiful daughter and holding them hostage at the secret base.
They see Vikram walking about the base free and easy and realize what is
what. Vikram is making ready to rape the Colonel's daughter when Karan
comes out of the woods, guns blazing, and in a silly fifteen-minute battle
wipes out the entire base single-handed. The enemy leader tries to escape.
Karan sees him two hundred feet (sixty meters) away climbing a fifty-foot
(fifteen-meter) ladder up a cliff face. But when the nasty gets to the top,
Karan is already there. Karan gets all kinds of awards for his courage and
the Colonel is happy to have him for a son-in-law.
Mark continues, There are only three musical numbers, including one in
which Karan and his fellow soldiers, all in camouflage uniforms, dance for
joy at being considered really good soldiers. Their movements are just a
bit 'swishy' and feminine and the scene itself unintentionally hilarious.
(Evelyn describes this scene as Gen. Colin Powell's worst nightmare.) Music
is by Namesh Kishore, except for the military fanfare. That is a very nice
piece with echoing military trumpets. It is a little florid for their
purposes, but they got it free off the soundtrack to BEN HUR. Royalties?
What do you think the chances are?
One interesting touch: when the army tries to get a confession from
Karan, they torture him. That seems accepted matter-of-factly by the
audience. I think it may not be so absurd.
Other credits: The director was Deepak Bahry. |
