You see, the Dobie comes by every other morning to do the ironing--he walks down the blocks of our little gated neighborhood waiting for someone to flag him down--and I was a little psyched about my first Dobie experience. Well, I didn't actually get to see the Dobie, but all my stuff came back beautifully ironed, including (I just discovered) my t-shirts. I don't think this shirt has ever been so smooth. Too bad it smells like a basement.
Anyway, a good, leisurely day. We were off from classes, because most of the students needed to go with Dheeraj to the FRO (Indian immigration) to take care of registration. [The Indian consulates that issue visas normally include a stipulation requiring the foreigner to register their permanent address within around a week of coming to the country. For some reason, no such stipulation was on the visas for seven of us, including me. I am choosing to assume this all grants me full diplomatic immunity. I have been trying to decide how I will use my new found legal freedom; I am wavering between steeling a cow and steeling the prime minister. I will keep you posted. ]
So I slept late and ate lunch with Sangeeta (who works from home) and got her help planning my free afternoon. She arranged for a taxi to take me around a few spots in this part of South Delhi. [We are in the neighborhood of Greater Kailash, section 1, R-block. Each block (A–W) probably has around 2,000 flats, just to give you an idea, and G.K. is just a tiny part of South Delhi, which is a relatively small part of New Delhi, which combines with old Delhi to account for the entire capital. A BIG city... a MEGA-city: it normally takes three hours to drive from G.K. 1 to the opposite end of the city]
First my driver took me to get some coffee, which I was excited for, but it turned out to be an iffy prospect as per usual. It is nearly impossible to get normal iced-coffee in Delhi: you ask for cream and they add whipped cream and charge you 20 rupees extra. You ask for cold coffee (which they understand) with ice, and it comes back blended like a frappacino. You ask for it to go, and they wrap your cup in tin-foil. You ask for it to stay, and they serve it in a giant ceramic mug. Luckily, there are three chains that are fairly reliable--Barista, Costa, and Cafe Coffee Day, the latter which is like a very fancy starbucks--so I was miffed when my driver pulled up to "Nirulas." I asked for "cold-coffee with ice and milk, no sugar" at which point they told me the sugar was already added. I figured, okay, just go with it. I made a point of saying again, "with ice." Surprise surprise, something bizarre happened: my iced coffee was actually cold coffee with a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream. Very disappointing, though tasty.
We drove over to the National Zoo, which is adjacent to a very nice Mughal era mosque, ruins, and an archeological museum. I bought my driver a ticket to come with me to the ruins, because he seemed to think he was my guide. We had a nice time walking around, but the only words he knew were "no entrance,"--which he said ad infinitum, pointing at different parts of the ruins, to what meaning I am still unsure--and "pure marble," which he used with great aptitude. The ruins were beautiful. The Mosque had pretty awesome tile-work and inlayed stones, still in great shape from 400 years ago.
Next we went to the National Handi-crafts gallery and shops, another place Sang recommended. The small gallery was very cool--tons of beautiful folk art, specially selected because of its quality from all over India. We stopped at a Cafe Coffee day for half an hour, so I could get my fix and review some Hindi flashcards, before continuing on to the Lotus temple.
My classmate Ben has an "in," there, so we got a special tour after the temple had closed. It is amazing and beautiful, arguably the most important and impressive B'hai temple in the world. Apparently India has more members of the B'Hai faith than any other country. The temple is absolutely massive--a giant stone Lotus flower, with 27 curved petals pointing upwards. The pinnacle is probably 8 stories high. We were told that it is a wonder of modern engineering that took two years to design.
We also got a private Q and A session about the B'hai faith from the South Asian director of something, a very-high-up. It was pretty interesting and very new-agey. In case you don't know (which I didn't), the B'ha'is believe that all world religions are chapters from the same book, and all gods and prophets are unified. If this sounds a little like "sharing, caring and harmony lets have hugs," I think it is. But the director was very articulate and convincing. I do think they have some very good ideas and an extremely positive message, even if their goal of a unified world religion is a little off-putting.
Sangeeta the socialite went out for her friends 40th b-day tonight, so James and I decided to go get dinner in the nearby m-block market. I had a hankering for some non-indian food, so we picked a nice-looking Chinese restaurant. In fact the food was just passable, but the atmosphere was nice, and there was an excellent salt-and-pepper fried vegetable appetizer. So who works at a Chinese restaurant in New Delhi? Apparently just regular Delhiwalas. That is, except for the door man who was undeniably Chinese. James and I found this very amusing: the restaurant found a very Chinese-looking Chinese man to essentially give the restaurant authenticity by standing outside in a bright-red "Asian-style" doormans costume, and let people in. It felt just like China!
Now I must go to bed, because our first Yoga class is tomorrow morning at seven. More later.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment