in delhi

I'm in India! I'll be here for a month, mostly travelling with and staying with my friends at the Naya Theatre in Bhopal... and sending out some emails along the way...

I arrived in Delhi on Friday night. Flight was smooth; finding my guesthouse in Lajpat Nagar, South Delhi was not... the taxi just could not locate it and we kept going around and around. Eventually I realized that he was being, well, quite stupid about it. Even with the guesthouse on the phone, he couldn't find it. Even knowing it was in A block, he went tearing off to M block. Finally, I insisted we go back to A block and do a systematic search: i.e., look at the numbers. Voila: there it was. Not too hard after all.

My guesthouse, Likir House, is run by Tibetans and is associated with a monastery in Ladakh. Very comfy and laidback, in a nice neighborhood away fom all the tourist craziness. On Saturday --- battling jetlag --- I went shopping in nearby Central Market and then went to see a play at the Delhi International Arts festival, directed by an old acquaintance I met through the Naya Theatre, Arvind Gaur. So nice to see Arvind...

On Sunday, I took the metro up to the Tibetan colony at Majnu ka Tilla. The metro is incredible... clean and air conditioned and huge. You buy a pastic token which is read by the machine going in, and then inerted into the going-out machine. The voice amking announcements is very simliar to the woman on the London tube, though the London tube does not have her advising passengers to kindly not sit on the floor of the train.

Majnu ka Tilla was interesting... a very warren-like collection of alleys where many Tobetns live. Had some momo soup at Wongdhen House (a popular backpacker guesthouse) and wandered around a bit before catching a cycle rickshaw back to the metro. Then on to more shopping in Khan Market and Dilli Haat. Khan Market is a fancy market popular with ex-pats. Dilli Haat is a big open-air "mall" where you pay a small entance fee and there are craft booths from all over the country. And then back to Lajpat Nagar... to the Cafe Coffee Day next to the Vdaphone store, to be precise. I bought an indian SIM card, but am having trouble getting reception anyplace except right around the store where I bought the card! I think it is because I am on an American cell phone... I knew I might get less reception, but this is absurd! I might have to spring for an Indian "handset." Had a nice chat with my friend Geetali in Shimla and touched base with my friend in Bhopal about my arrival there Monday evening.

Today I went to a place I thought i'd never go again: Paharganj, the backpacker mecca of Delhi. As dirty and tout filled as ever... but this time I was there because I was going on a walk prganized by Salaam Balaak Trust, an NGO that helps street children who live near the Delhi tain station, as well as the at-risk kids of migrant workers who also live near the station. I went on the walk with a very nice English couple, and our tour guide was 20 year old Anil. He lives with his mother in a small house along the tracks, and has been educated (is now attending college) through the intervention of Salaam Balaak. We saw the different "contact points" where the street kids can come and hang out, get medical attention, a little schooling, and the opportunity to perhaps go and live in one of the Trust's "shelters" (ie, orphanages) or be reunited with their families if thy so desire. We also saw a little school near the migrant settlement where kids can come before and after school for extra instruction. The tour finished up with a short walk around the back streets of Paharganj, seeing a lane where the potters work, and then a stop at one of the shelters. I had a short meeting with the director; the Trust has a very active theatre program, so she was telling me about that.

Then Charlotte and Andrew (who had just arrived in India) came with me (again by metro) to the Andhra Pradesh Bhavan Canteen for lunch. I ahd read about this place online and it was fantastic! Rs 80 (less than $2) for an all you can eat vegetarian "thali" (meal). Spicy and delicious and when they say 'all you can eat" they really mean it --- you have to fight off the men trying to put more eggplant and dal and rice  and sambar on your plate! Truly a fun, "old-school" Indian experience. (As opposed to, say, talking on your cell phone in Cafe Coffee Day while having a mocha latte...)     

It was raining yesterday and today, which has mae the waether nice and cool, though also, well, a little wet. I'm leaving in about an hour for the plane... away from dirty Delhi... dear old dirty Delhi...

x m