On The Road Again

Ok well it's my last night in Delhi, so I'd better get to updating!

Working backward, I've spent a scandalously-relaxing last day in Delhi. It was one of those mornings where I let myself sleep and sleep, to the point where I was convinced that when I looked at the clock it would be like noon or 1PM, but as it turns out it was 10AM sharp when I finally got out of bed! NICE! :)

My only goal for the day was to buy people's presents, and I have to confess that I've failed miserably. The basic problem is that my requests (other than the one for a white elephant...I'm still hopeful...) were for fabric or jewelry, and you really CAN'T be a stupid guy who knows nothing about fabric OR jewelry shopping for these things alone in India. I kept thinking how much I needed my mother here to look at the fabrics (she's one of those touchy shoppers), and Birthday Girl Juicy MD for the jewelry (I have been to jewelry shops with her in Manhattan, and either the girl knows her stuff, or she says "no" with confidence lol).

Anyway, I feel a LITTLE less guilty, since I bought everyone things in Afghanistan, but it is disappointing that when you do these flash tours of countries, with one tiny bag, it's hard to buy all the things you want for people (it looks like I'll leave both India and Israel/Palestine virtually giftless). I keep my eyes open for things for my nieces, or magnets for my sister, and I'm a constant necklace hunter for Shakira and my sister and mother, but in the end I'm sort of clueless, without very much free time (apart from today), and VERY space-restricted.

Sorry.

SO, yesterday was one of those 110+ degree days (YAY!), and what I've realized is that I am VERY affected by humidity, and not that affected by actual heat. For me, 112 and 90 feel pretty much the same, but 90 with humidity is WAY worse than 112 and dry (and Delhi is pretty dry). This allowed me to be an insanely-efficient tourist, yesterday, despite the heat, and because I didn't stop for food or drink ALL day until dinner at 8:30PM (minus ONE bottle of watter when I was done with it all at 5:30 and went back to the guesthouse to await dinner plans), I was able to check three important sites off my list:

First, I went to the totally-disappointing Masjid Jama. It was one of the last things built by Shah Jahan, and really, it was a letdown. I have to admit that my attitude was coloured by the guys at the door who tried to scam me 50 rupees for taking my shoes, but when I started yelling at them about how this is a mosque and they should be ashamed and they probably aren't even Muslim (as if I'm so much better just because I can make out the "Mohammed" carved on the wall in Arabic...or Persian as the case may be...) they were pretty apologetic. I don't have a lot to say about it, except that it was SO underwhelming that I didn't even bother to climb the minaret for the city view (and those of you who have toured places with me know that I'm TOTALLY the type who climbs into and up and through EVERYTHING...I can think of more than a few adventures with Curie in Spain and Portugal where I managed to climb into places I shouldn't have really been!). There isn't really any great tilework, painting, or calligraphy to speak of, and I'd say that the mosque at Fatehpour Sikri, as god-awful as that city is, was MUCH better (although at least in this one I wasn't harassed into buying mini chess sets where all the pieces are these nubby nondescript pawns!).

Knowing that I needed to calm down, and confident that I could find respite with the Sikhs, I then went to the Gudjwara Bangla Sahib, which although nothing compared to Amritsar's Golden Temple, was still quite nice (I'm such a sucker for good singing and huge pools filled with dirty, miracle-inducing water!).

The thing about Sikh sites, and my dinner companions last night agrees, is that you are really taken care of. No one is harassing you, no one is begging, and no one is trying to screw you for your shoes. In stark contrast to the Masjid Jama shoe extortion incident, the Sikhs *of course* took my shoes for free, and even blessed them before handing them back to me when I left! I just sat for a long time and listened and thought, and even gave a donation because I so much wanted to encourage the kind of environment I was enjoying, and I decided that if I were: 1. Capable of believing in any kind of doctrinal religious law (which I'm not), and 2. Capable of growing my hair and beard out and wearing a turban (which I'm not), then I'd totally be Sikh, because I really like them :) [ok and yes they are kind hot lol...in fact the most striking women I've seen in India have all been Sikh, and I think I've gushed enough about the men...or did I not yet talk about Chandigarh? lol]

After the Sikh temple, I went to the Indira Ghandi memorial. I wasn't originally going to go, but after having seen the Nehru family home in Allahabad, and having sort of been immersed almost as much in the history of that family as I have been in the Mughal line, since coming to India, I decided I should pay the spot of her assassination a visit (to be gruesomely honest, the fact that her bloody sari is on display, there, and you can see the path where she took her last steps before being shot by her, um, Sikh bodyguards, had a huge appeal!). It didn't have the same serenity as the home in Allahabad, but I still really enjoyed it, and it was EXTREMELY well-curated. When you walk in the door, you immediately hit a class display column in which there is a photo of Indira Ghandi in her later years watching a young child standing in the doorway; what you then realize is that you are standing in the same spot as the child, and although you are here to watch Indira, she is really watching you -- really good curating.

Since I'm SO time-limited (I have less than another hour to tell you all about the things I haven't, so far!) I won't go into my thoughts on the fact that none (ZERO) of her personal letters (and I knew this from seeing them in Allahabad, as well) are written in anything but English (with some French, mostly to be cute, when she wrote home to her father), and while I agree with people who talk about the adoption of English as an INDIAN language, and ... wait ... I just said I'm not going to talk about all this. Well fine, if you want to know my thoughts on languages in India and the tense space that English occupies, then call me in Egypt and ask me, or invite me to lunch when I'm back in the US and ask me, there :) And while you're at it, you can ALSO ask me what I think about these political dynasties that are so often set up by neo-Communist elites, who write endlessly in non-native tongues from their country estates about the need to reclaim national sovereignty, shed the colonial yoke, and promote an equitable distribution of resources.

I had dinner at my favourite-ish restaurant (the one with the amazing garlic bread in Saket, Azurao) with the friend and his boyfriend Desi introduced me to, and the date who was assigned to me, a Parsi puppeter (a rare find in both senses!) who is apparently from a really old family now living in Pune. From Degas to the Parsi puppeter, it's always the ones who are inheriting who feel the need (ie: have the freedom) to be artists...anyway, he's apparently one of the top puppeters in India, and is always jetting around to do shows ranging from HIV/AIDS awareness themes in slum areas to Indian classics in Singapore, and I think that it's pretty cool. That said, the dinner was TOTALLY unromantic, and when he asked me when he was driving me home if we were going to my place or to his, I had to politely explain to him that I don't transition that easily from absolute non-romantic mode to "ok, your place," and he understood (although he did try to sneak a kiss that came off very awkwardly outside my guesthouse). In all, and nice guy, and we might all have dinner again, tonight, but not the Indian romance I was looking for (poor Pookie probably has fingers crossed on every trip I go on that I will set my sites on someone else! lol).

Speaking of romance, I guess I should take us all back to my cliffhanger about the Punjabis in Chandigarh. Well despite my mother's slightly disturbing email wishing me "sweet nights" (ewww!), I'm afraid that despite Desi and my obvious popularity amongst the Punjabis, we still slept alone in in our hotel in Chandigarh lol (sorry for the multi-day cliffhanger). After we toured the Corbusier-designed high court (I think I wrote about that?...yes because I told you about the Sikh desk attendant) we went to a "fantasy rock garden" (I think I also wrote about that? Desi's compulsive indexing of each of the equally non-fantastic humanoid rock formations?), and then to the lake. As much as I don't consider myself a water person, a nice waterfront REALLY does make a place so much more peaceful. We strolled up and down, were accosted by Punjabis galore, and witnessed (and then fought over our interpretations of) an interesting mixture of family relaxation (swan-shaped peddle-boats, ice cream vendors, etc.) and mischievous youth cruising ground. After having dinner at a restaurant that I fell in love with while Desi was using the toilet, there, earlier in the day (and then, not realizing the name of it, read about it in Lonely Planet to Desi and said: "Ok, well if we don't go back to that one earlier, then I want to go to Picadilly's Blue Ice -- it sounds really cool, and a lot like the place we saw earlier" Desi was like: "That WAS the place we were at, earlier.").

The dinner was sort of interesting, because there was a couples-only policy for eating upstairs, which was weird because it only made the cruisey-eye of gay-friendly clientele all the more efficient in its search downstairs! Things got a bit out of hand when the manager/owner/something (we have the same in Egypt -- groups of mid-20s boys whose families have too much money and so they engage in the entrepreneurial pursuit of opening a poorly-managed, but still chic and cool for the location, club/bar/restaurant) came over to us (after having already drunkely wandered by, once, on his way to the restroom, telling the waiters to "give us the best shit") and encouraged us to come to some rave in a hill station, somewhere, where, he bragged, there would be people on crystal meth, ecstasy, "liquid pot" lol...one pretty awkward moment occurred when, after having brazenly commented to his friend about how they would split up the chics upstairs, one of whom, he told us, was from Chicago, OR just share the Chicago one in a 3some, we were asking his friend where there was to go at night for fun, and this guy BENDS OVER, and, pointing to his rear, tells his friend that "that's the only fun he's going to get tonight"!). I can't stand these drunk, aggressive, homophobic closet-cases (aka: all of Egypt's upper-middle class and elite male youth).

AH! My account is running out! Despite having more than 30 minutes left, an annoying message keeps coming up every minute or two warning me that I have "approximately 15 minutes left" and I need to recharge. Um, no.

Anyway, the dinner ended with multiple people taking our photos, getting our contact info, etc. (bordering on what Desi calls "critical pundi," where the pundi -- or cruiseyness -- of a place gets near explosion) and as the chaos mounted and became a bit awkward, we left for a lakeside walk. We ended up meeting a score of university students eager to tell us all about the different sports they specialized in (I have to tell you: it didn't show), and after being bitten by about 100 mosquitoes while with them by the lake, and narrowly avoiding what would have no-doubt been an unwise invitation to spend the night in the dorm, Desi and I walked ALL THE WAY across Chandigarh to get back to our hotel.

Well I'd better go, but when I get back to Egypt I promise to tell you about Amritsar (not much to tell, but I really enjoyed it there!), my thoughts on the book I'm reading (City of Djinns...about Delhi), and give you my list of rail station offices (I copied them down, before coming back from Allahabad, because I didn't think you'd believe me about how absurd they are!). Here's to wishing everyone a happy blog read, and I'll be in touch probably on 7 May, when I'll be back at AUC (booo!).

Wanting nothing more than to be done with Egypt and on a plane to the US to see my Moo,

VC