the three week mark...
on REM Zoe Lara (in India) (India), 10/Oct/2010 09:39, 34 days ago
I've been in Delhi for just over three weeks and haven't written since my first few days. I've been on a rollercoaster of starting work and finding somewhere to live since and this has been the first time I’ve been head-spaced enough to put it all together. This is an amalgamation of different emails written at different times – but the abridged version is that a) I’m okay and b) everything happens to extremes in Delhi! The food is super-hot, or super-fatty, or super-sweet; people are super-rich, or super-poor; small street bust-ups are full-on blow-ups, and car horns aren't pressed once as a warning but bleeted repeatedly for musical effect...The combination of motorbikes roaring and autorickshaws chug-chugging, and mercedes swooshing by and horns honking makes a kind of musical background score to the city – one punctuated by barking dogs and children wailing or laughing and people in the market bargaining or arguing, and that’s without even mentioning the suspiciously rabid-looking dogs or the cows in the road! I haven't experienced it yet, but from what I’ve heard, the weather is extreme and chimes with the city's music: the rain is crazy and the summers are scorching; and in the winter, the fog creeps over Delhi and no amount of bright Indian scarves or hot curries can keep you from its chill."Delhi is not the real India" is a phrase I’ve heard an awful lot in the short time that I have been here. I don't know if there is something as homogenous as the 'real India' – perhaps I will find out this year – but I can certainly believe that this city is a living world of its own that could take a foreigner years, if not decades,to be drawn to; and befuddled, amazed and turned over by. The poverty knocks me for six every day, in some form: most recently, the cycle rickshaws, which unlike their motorised counterparts, are simply human horse-and-carriages. The men cycling sleep in slums and visibly push and pant far heavier people up hills and across motorways, in their carriage behind – the Indian middle class, tourists, or businessmen. The work of a cycle rickshaw wala is as dangerous as it is exhausting – they cannot be heard above car horns on the road and are easily hit by passing traffic – but they remain inthe job because they're never paid enough to scrape together enough rupees to buy an 'auto' instead: In short, they are kept poor because they start poor; and from what I can see, no amount of survival-determined sweating breaks that cycle. I'd really like to picture a role reversal - the fat tourist pant-peddling up the hill and the lightweight old man with a stoop in his back laying to rest in the carriage. I'm also acutely aware there that there is lots of poverty that I see without fully understanding it, and still more that I cannot see.From what I can see– for my shivering, or dizziness, or lost-ness, there’s also been gestures of friendliness. The family that run the local store have been smiling at my attempts to stock-buy spices with the intention of learning how to make daal, writing down recipies and offering me their home-cooking in the meantime so that I'm eating okay. Raj – my driver for the first week, who used to work at the British High Commission and hates Mahatma Gandhi – has an infectious giggle and has phoned me lots when thoughts about what foreigners wouldn’t know have popped into his head: like -Zoe, if you want to go to the temple this weekend, you might not want to drink the holy water they give you. We think a cow is holy so we sprinkle it with er, cow piss, but you're not hindu.The sunset from my flat window each night casts a yellow light over the stone floor I slept on when I moved in, and before the night blue-strip-light pops on, it looks peaceful and homely. My colleagues at work are incredibly warm and share their spicy food with me (as I splutter and choke!) at lunchtime, and children in my neighbourhood play together in the street, dodging around cars and dancing near men cooking eggs on the corner. This weekend, I left the concrete, ramshackle jungle-city and saw mountains from a bus window on a six-hour ride to Jaipur for a work trip, and famous pink stones lit by a sunset-pink sun. Last week, this country-girl-suddenly-in-scary-city found also found little park right by a main road in Delhi, and sat in it barefoot, listening to the birds and feeling grass underfoot again. There is another small park to train for the Delhi half marathon around near my new home, and I've finally worked out a route there that involves minimum confrontation with traffic, dark alleys, or bulls in the road! Every other day after work, I run two races: one to prepare for the half marathon and another before to get home, get changed and get jogging before night falls and it's too dangerous to be out.In these last three weeks, I have been chewed up and spat out and knocked for six, but also riding on highs and little moments of shaky peace as well. I haven’t found my feet but I'm stumbling less. These excerpts are from emails from then….-------------------The weekend after I last wrote, I had just started to get used to curry for breakfast, and dodge-dancing across traffic-streaming main roads without curling up like the poor hedgehog at the ending of my favourite childhood cartoon, and hailing autorickshaws followed by fast negotiations in broken hindi-english to avoid being ripped off on account of my skin colour (I hadn't won yet, but had at least learned what the game was). I had nowhere permanent to live and no real comprehension of what was happening around me, or whether the street-stares and occasional catcalls thrown my way were harmless foreigner-fascination or unmasked menace, but I plumped for the friendlier interpretation. I felt comfortable in my hostel, under a mosquito net, which calmed me by floating sleepy memories of the last time I had lived under one– a beautiful island in Vanuatu, and a hut atop a hill, under a crowd of stars. How different city life is! When I woke up on Saturday to the hum of the ceiling fan and the wail of horns honking – still lost but less jetlagged – I ventured outside again. Shortly after, the VSO head of securityin Delhi phoned to warn that there’d been a terrorist shooting outside a mosque; that more attacks may follow with the onset of the commonwealth games the following fortnight; and that I should avoid crowded places.With no time-earnt‘Delhi sense’ to decide how seriously to take that warning, I decided not to dwell on it - or the question of where in the city isn't crowded - hopped/zoomed/coughed-in-traffic off to a party on Saturday night instead to meet the rest of the VSO delhi crew. They were young (mostly) mischievous (without exception), pizza-eating and western-not-quite-eastern: the party was bare feet and rooftops, and sneaky western clothes ripped out from under indian ones as soon as they had jumped out of a rickshaw and behind a closed door! The next day – my first Sunday in Delhi – I went jogging through Lodi gardens, a park nestled just around the corner from the British High Commission. To get to the gardens, I clutched my map and my ipod and stumble-ran through strange smells in the street, jumping puddles and traffic and stray dogs in the road. I slow-jogged past the building next to the park– the “Islamic Institute”, which was – since the security warning – heavily guarded by soldiers, frowning in the rain with their guns cocked towards the traffic. I streaked past them, thinking how strange I must look to them avoid mulling over how strange the situation seemed to me……and into the park. All of a sudden, it was a different Delhi: rain-soaked, puddle-drowned greenery, stone paths and old ruined temples, and young couples holding hands (and kissing! in public! Was this really the India I had read about on the plane?!)---------After that first weekend, I lost my place at the hostel I was staying, so I spent three nights sofa-hopping until I was put in a guest house - a chance to meet some fellow volunteers, but also a rhythm of sleeplessness I found tough to manage while starting a new job. At the time, I had no idea there would be a guesthouse at the other end of the rainbow, or when my place would be ready. I was groped once in the street; and ripped off daily, tired at work and always taking wrong turns into what felt a bit like the same hustle-bustle everywhere. Though– through sleeplessness and sofa-hopping – some other sort of senses-assault would happen that was wonderful or unexpected, like...trying indian sweets that look suspiciously white and gooey, putting them in my mouth and being so overcome by their sweet, honey-yumminess that I actually closed myeyes in the manner of a cheap haagen-daaz telly ad. Or jogging – at twilight away from the polluted, horn-honking, scissor-y, crazy roads and finding a park full of green spaces and a lotus-shaped temple; thud-running through the humid air up to the highest hill in the park to look out in twilight the city's streets; and discovering – from a distance and a giddy height – that even Delhi's street strip-lights look almost like night stars, and that smelly buildings twinkle!------------------When I moved the guesthouse, I was looked after by a lovely Indian couple of cousins, who taught me hindi words and smiled in the mornings and safeguarded my phone when I went jogging. The guest house staff crew - all younger indian guys in their twenties - were incredibly kind, short of showing me that I was wearing my salwar (indian dress) the wrong way round! They insisted that I take down their mobile numbers when I went jogging in case anything (gulp) should happen in the park. They were held in line by a kind-but-steely matriarch, queen of the manor (or B’n’B, in this case!), colourful, plump, floaty in a sari, syrup-y with guests as she wood them in english......but: (I imagined from her hard-barking hindi), lots less so with the young staff! It was a comforting place to be while waiting to move in and they taught me the key phrases in hindi that you need to survive in delhi - like "bahoot mehanga hai": that's*way*too expensive!!------------------------After two days, I got a call to say my flat was ready, so I hopped again into a taxi with all of my belongings. I had a ceiling fan and a broken bed donated from the VSO office but no other key furniture, and spent several mornings getting up for work after abandoning the bed and sleeping on a rug on a stone floor. By the fourth day of failing to sleep, I skipped work to a second hand furniture market to try– and eventually succeed – at negotiating to buy my own bed. It was an embarrassing sort of cross-cultural-cross-language comedy of errors involving outdoor dusty markets, sleeping Sikhs, motorbikes and over-the-phone translation attempts with the help of Raj. The afternoon bed victory culminated in another warning call from VSO: I was to stay in my house after 3pm, since a controversial court judgement was to be handed down that might result in rioting on the streets. The phone call happened close to three; I was hauling a wooden frame across the street trailed by three men on motorbikeswhen it came, so there was little to do but try to speed up! Later I heard gunshots from outside my window, but on tense inspection, it had nothing to do with rioting.------------------------The next day, I headed to the foreigners’ registration office to get my passport stamped. The list of paperwork needed for the stamp was very long and particularly precise, involving four passport photos, eight supporting papers, three forms, a booklet and many questions about my father (none about my mother!). It was my third trip there – it takes four or five attempts for the average foreigner – and I had grown used to the waiting lounge, officials putting on serious faces, and mull of more-than-bemused looking people from a range of nationalities in a rainbow of national dress styles, variously sitting, queue-jumping, looking puzzled or arguing with officials! Outside the entrance to this chaotic global village, there was frequent, heavy rain; and once I sat outside the entrance tent and glimpsed some wet men dressed all in white – presumably from an arid region – rushing and shuffling in sandals, pulling up theirbaggy white trousers and knee-length cotton shirts, clutching their crotches, and giggling. It was a people-watching paradise but I had no idea what to make of it. There was also an “Afghan section” which was the busiest of all of the queues. I was too busy trying to get my papers in order andlook serious and sensible during my next “please-stamp-me” chat with officials to chat to anyone in that section, which I regret, though I did exchange a few words in French with a very polite person from the Cote d’Ivoire who was seeking political asylum.------------------------------------By last Friday, I had a stamped passport, an unfurnished flat and a regular route to work: I was exhausted but happy to have my own place and bed-victorious. Having survived that week, I let my guard down and made a silly snap decision, and narrowly avoided sexual assault. I had hopped across the main motorway at dusk to hail an‘auto’ to meet a friend on the other side of town. In the midst of many failed attempts, a tall thirty-something Indian man with a friendly smile and a near-perfect English accent, walked passed and mouthed at me above the traffic -“You won’t manage it here. It’s the commonwealth games – they’ve all gone to the stadium. We’ll have better luck over there”.He gestured a little further down the street and we walked together, shouting a little small-talk under the drone of honking horns. An auto came and he quickly flagged it, noted we were in competition for a ride in the same direction, and offered to share.Quickly after I accepted, I realised I had been trying to get an auto from the wrong side of the motorway. When I told my companion my mistake, he smiled and said he’d already realised but it was no problem: we’d go only a little further, drop him at a roundabout where he’d pick up his car. A ‘little’ turned into minutes; then tens of minutes; and the Delhi of main roads and pathed pavements turned into rubble and ramshackle housing: he’d directed us into a slum. He continued to stream suspicious lines at me – foreigners can’t hail autos; I’d be lost in Delhi without him. We stopped eventually outside a squat building with cars lined up on one side and he stepped out into the hot night, barked something to the driver in Hindi; and commanded me to “wait there”. As soon he was out of earshot and eyesight, I pleaded with the driver to speed us away –I don't know him, I don't want to be here, I meant to go to Maviya Nagar, please, at least tell me which way is the main road so I can go......The driver refused until he understood either my pleas or my eyes. He turned the auto and sped over the rubble of the roads before the man re-emerged. When we got back to the motorway, he turned to me and said over his shoulder -“That man - bad man”“I think so,” I replied; and hesitated – “Why you think?”“He say - when we stop - he say me in Hindi – Hindi – ‘you wait there 5 minutes, then I’m going come out and f**k her’”.It took me a while to come down from those words, but when I did, I was instantly glad that I hadn't heard them until after we had gotten away. The Auto driver saved me that night from the whim of a man I was stupid to trust, what may have happened had I sprinted away in a dangerous part of Delhi, or both. I’m thanking the (smoggy, hidden) Delhi stars that he was on my side. But it really wobbled me: When I returned to my apartment later that evening I heard footsteps behind me and – terrified I was being followed again – I raced straight up the stairs, fumbled with the key in the lock and sped inside the apartment. It took me a few heavy breaths leaning against the inside of the door before I realised that this second man I’d suspected had only been climbing the stairs because he was my neighbour. The next few days in the street, I flinched at catcalls that before I’d ignored.----------------------Work has been challenging, confusing and wonderful. I’m here doing advocacy work for an NGO and network that works with some of the seventy million disabled people in India, with a focus on children living in slums. I’m the only westerner in my office but one – who unfortunately is hospitalised with dengue fever – and I’ve arrived just as parliament is rushing through national legislation to implement the UN convention on the rights of people with disabilities. There has been fierce lobbying going on and I was lucky enough in my first week to be taken to strategy meeting ahead of consultations with the drafting committee. There were high emotions and threatened walkouts; and the day after, the drafters of the bill relented and agreed to state-wide consultations, so that the people subject to these laws – around most of the country live in rural areas, a world away from the high corridors of delhi law-makers – could be consulted on them. This weekend, our work has taken us to Jaipur – “the Pink City”, which is pink, and bustly-but-beautiful and full of stone palaces - where we’re conducting consultations with disabled peoples’ networks. I’m writing this on my laptop as passionate Hindi is flying around me; and every now and then, I’m getting translated as I try to ask questions and digest the relevant bits of the convention with them. We’re sitting on mats and eating from the floor, and I’m running backwards and forwards to wash my hands to avoid delhi belly – a struggle I’m sure I will ultimately fail at! Last night, my colleagues and I slept together in one room in an old manor house with a colonial garden swing outside and portraits of moustached-suited-and-booted men on the walls: it was aptly named “The General’s Retreat”; and a strange other-era-esque respite from the world outside. When we’re not all-hands-on-deck for workshops, I’ve been charged with making recommendations about what to lobby for re the civil and political rights sections of the national bill; and it’s really humbling (and scary!) to be involved in something that means so much to a lot of people. I’m also putting together toolkitst that we’ll use to take international law to the grassroots disabled peoples’ organisations in India, so they can understand what their rights are and advocate for them when they’re not being protected. Away from being a student in a library, it’s inspiring to meet the group that we’re working for, and it makes international law lots less theoretical: one man, today, with three teeth and an orthopaedic impairment, who ate with his feet and put himself through university even when his own family didn’t recognise his right to education or food.I could write lots about what I have learned at the workshop today through sparks, broken hindi and post-hoc translations-on-the-train, but I’ll save that for another email; when my Hindi is better, the words are firsthand rather than second-hand, and I understand more deeply than now, still-dizzied by it and everything else here. I’m running the Delhi half marathon on behalf of the cause next month, so no doubt you’ll hear more (plus a plea for sponsorship) soon!-------------------------------That’s it for now! Missing you all - and especially those who I know will have (somehow!) gotten to the end of this mammoth email! I'd love to hear all your news.