The Delhi road system appears to be a sentient being. There exists no order of the likes we are used to, but there is something almost organic about the way it functions. Vehicles of all sizes and descriptions surge forward like blood corpuscles in a vein, tumbling alongside one another in the unified attempt to get somewhere other than here. Sooner or later, however, the blood thickens, the veins become congested, and the corpuscles become stuck. This time is generally used to honk horns frequently and loudly, preferably popping a few ear drums in the process.
Despite their rowdy behaviour, vehicles in Delhi are a rather affectionate bunch. They are constantly getting up close and personal, brushing against one another in the manner of cats. Maintaining your own space means having an inch gap on all sides. One mm clearance is considered ample if you want to get past another roaring piece of metal. Any less than that and, needless to say, you have again become a marooned corpuscle in the sluggish veins of a man who eats way too much ghee.
You can sense cars sucking in their tummies in order to squeeze through the crowd, and almost hear them expel a breath of relief after spilling into the intersection. Many intersections have traffic lights, but no one relies on them to indicate the safety of moving forward. The way to judge whether it is safe to move forward is to measure your determination against others’ determination. Who is more desperate to get onto the next road? After the dominant drivers have made themselves known, they will gush forward with the flow, gaining momentum until they hit another ebb. Meanwhile, those left behind wait a bit longer. Or a lot longer.
Moonho tackled all this with admirable resolution. He bumped along with the best of them, intuitively picking up the rules of this many-veined beast as we went along. On the roads of Delhi there is an understanding between all wheeled entities – an unspoken communication that determines the ultimate flow of events. Like sea creatures moving in synch with the tides, cars weave in and out, slip through spaces here and there and zoom forward at breakneck speeds where the flow allows.
Meanwhile, I was wrestling with the map. No – this is not because I’m a woman and can’t read maps. Rather, the rickshaw/map ratio was somewhat disproportionate. To open the map properly was to fill up the whole space of the cabin, rendering Moonho blind to the hectic goings-on outside. I tried to fold the map down to the appropriate section, but the map refused to cooperate and flapped like a bird in my face. As I slipped around in a little pool generated by my own pores I swore at it, threatened to rip it and pinned it to the dashboard.
Finally I pinpointed our location. We’d gone past our turnoff. Several times.
Another problem with the map was that representing Delhi in all its confusing glory on a neat page with straight lines and uniform little corners is horribly misleading. The map says we have to turn right… but does that gravelly patch up ahead constitute as a right turn? Or is it just a construction site? Piles of bricks and rubble regularly obscured our vision, resulting in several more wrong turns and leading us even deeper into the organs of the beast.
But after some extremely careful navigation and more wrestling with the map, we made it. Dirty, sweaty and tired, we made it.
Indians wondering what the hell a couple of foreigners are doing driving a rickshaw
Places we stayed in Delhi
Our plan was to stay in Delhi for three or four days. But Delhi had other ideas. The metropolitan beast swallowed us whole and refused to spit us back out for the next month. During this time we stayed in two Indian households, one hostel, one hotel and a lawyer’s office.
Yes, you read right. We stayed in a lawyer’s office. It was not a part of the planned schedule. We did not sign up for the Speical Delhi Tour and Lawyer’s Office Accommodation Package. But nevertheless, that is the package we got.
This residential tour began in the poshest part of town, where rich houses nestle comfortably among tall green trees that cleanse the air in defiance of the rest of the city. One of those houses belonged to Gautam, who we found via couch surfing (www.couchsurfing.com). We arrived at his place covered in over 120km worth of dirt and stinking like pigs, so it was rather magnanimous of Gautam to allow us into his polished, immaculate home. I was afraid to touch anything, expensive as every couch, cushion and ornament looked. Yes, as Gautam himself said, he was certainly one number of the ‘uncelebrated population of India.’ That is, one of the filthy rich ones.
Where Gautam smokes his hookah
Kamal, me and Gautam (from left to right)
So for our first couch surfing experience we slept on a king sized bed, in a big beautifully furnished room, with our own adjoining bathroom and, most importantly, water hot enough to make my skin go a delicious shade of red. During our stay Gautam shared with us his friends, his Nepali cook and his Chinese tea.
I’ve just made it sound like we all had an orgy over Chinese tea, didn’t I?
I should accurately report that nothing raunchy went on (apologies to those friends out there who I know enjoys nothing more than a good raunchy story). But we were able to lap up Delhi luxury for two days before Gautam went trotting off to Brazil, and after our dramatic entry into Delhi we bloody needed it.
The next stop was a hostel. This is where my toddler on wheels ceased to be legal. Our temporary registration, being temporary, had run out. Sigh…
We drove to our next couch surfing host’s house late at night when there were fewer police out to catch us in our newly illegal vehicle. Over the next few days our host very kindly went to some lengths to help us with The Damsel Dilemma. Some people, it seemed, were quite taken by the romance of our rickshaw trip. They didn’t want it to end any more than we.
Our second couch surfing host and some lovely couch surfing Brits
Time was passing, however, and my poor blue baby was now making me blue too. As many authorities had assured me, I thought this registration obstacle would be one I could get around or at least climb over with a neat little bribe. But now the obstacle seemed to be growing larger and larger, and I could see no foot holes or handholds that would help me get over the bloody thing.
But then, just as all hope seemed lost, our host introduced us to a lawyer called Surender! Surender turned out to be another genie who seemed convinced that there would be ‘no worries’ as far as getting my girl registered was concerned.
Apparently there was a way to put Damsel in someone else’s name (cringe!) while we still retained the contractual rights to do with her as we wished. Well, at this point I was willing to try anything.
While arrangements were being made we moved to Paharganj, the cheap touristy area where we had first stayed upon our arrival in India. Skinny young men with muscles like boards were still working themselves into a frenzy, trying to make everything spick and span before the Commonwealth Games. Gladly, many of the gaping mouths in the roads had been snapped shut. But now bricks fell from the heavens.
Workers stood on the crumbling edges of buildings three and four stories up, throwing down the hard red missiles with only mild interest as to whether tourist heads lurked below like soft target boards. Flimsy pieces of string unsuccessfully blocking off sections of street served as the only warning that the air was thick with shrapnel. Perhaps they thought the flying bricks themselves were enough warning.
So getting in and out of our hotel required a daily game of dodge-the-brick. It just goes to show, India literally does offer fun and games around every corner!
No Worries Man
In fleeing this war zone of brick vs. man, we finally took up residence at the lawyer’s office. He had a nice wide desk to sleep on, and with laptops as pillows we couldn’t go wrong!
Actually, if I must be honest, there was a spare room with two beds in it so we never got to try out the desk. It would have made a good story though. Oh, the games Moonho and I could have played - me as the brazen secretary and him the wealthy boss!
Ah-hem. Off on a tangent again.
As I mentioned before, we first arrived at Surender’s office requesting help with Damsel’s registration. At his response my heart did a tap-n-beat of anticipation.
“No worries, no worries!”
As it turned out, this was his response to almost everything. “Do you mind if we make some tea in your kitchen?”
“No worries, don’t worry!”
“I’m just going to step out to the shop for a minute…”
“No worries, no worries!!”
“I think I’ll just read my book..”
“Don’t worry!!!”
There was no point telling him that you had never been particularly worried about reading your book in the first place. He still felt it necessary to make absolutely sure you were not worrying about it. For, as he said, he was a lawyer. It was his job to take away people’s worries.
I was nonetheless a little nonplussed when No Worries Man first invited us, in all seriousness, to stay in his office.
“But wouldn’t our presence disturb other people working in the office?” I asked (at least five other people work on the fourth floor of the building.) But of course, his answer was the standard No Worries Man answer:
“No worries, no worries!”
Us in the west tend not to accept such generosity easily. We carry around guilt like a handbag; a commodity considered necessary to get through life. In India I have often found myself stuck between this cultural trait and the consequences of not accepting Indian hospitality. Indians will insist on giving something to you. They know what they have to give is good for you. You have to accept the hospitality and if you don’t they will assume a wounded expression impossible for all but the extremely strong willed to endure. I struggle not to crumble like a crushed Indian sweet before such an aggrieved countenance.
I really need not have worried this time though. The other lawyer in the office, Bhupender, was a concerned but caring bear. All the assistants and accountants were simply jolly, always smiling, waving and of course making tea and attempts at conversation in equal measure. If our domestic activities impeded on their office bizzings and buzzing at all, everyone certainly did a good job at hiding it.
And there we remained for three weeks, waiting and waiting and praying that Damsel could be registered. We spent a lot of time with No Worries Man, as he is a workaholic and therefore rather attached to his ergonomic office chair.
Like many Indians, Surender is not concerned with exactitude. Five minutes could mean one hour, a snack could mean a meal and a quick meeting with one friend could mean staying with that friend’s family for the night. But No Worries Man took it one step further. Nothing was specified, not even our names! Somewhere along the line he decided that his mispronunciation of our names was a great joke and refused to use our proper names thereafter.
And so I am known by a range of names in Delhi. Sometimes he would introduce me as Leena. The next day we’d meet other friends or family and I’d be Lisa. And then after awhile he decided that Lily suited me best. Likewise, Moonho Cho was called Moon chon chon, Moon chew chow and Moon chon cho. By the end of our stay Moonho’s name had evolved to become something like an onomatopoeic word for a Disney comic character chewing on nuts.
No Worries Man also liked to make up stories. We visited his nice big house and he mournfully explained how it was not good enough. “We are not even middle class, you see. We are lower middle class.” After having said this, he went on to describe the design of his even bigger new house and swimming pool presently under construction. Yes, he did enjoy tall tales, and every single time he delivered them with a barely concealed hint of cheek.
It wasn’t only us he told stories to, either. In fact, he became the regular actor whenever we went out. It was like being a part of some impromptu theatre group. Naturally, if he was out with us, other people were curious as to our relationship. So he would take on all sorts of roles. At the Taj Mahal we even became some sort of celebrities or millionaires after his acclamation to all those bugging us for business that both he and his friend were our bodyguards. In my old hoody and ripped trousers I hardly lived up to my part as a lady of high social standing, yet they believed him without question! Well, I suppose lawyers do have to know how to put on a convincing act.
Lucky he grew up as a farmer and values honesty. If he didn’t value honesty, this man could be one dangerous lawyer.
Arranged Marriage
I have been asked countless times in India: “Do you have an arranged marriage or love marriage?”
“Arranged marriages don’t exist in Australia,” I say. “My parents met Moonho for the first time only a week before the wedding.”
“Weren’t they angry?”
“No, no… they trust my judgment well enough. They’ve always let me make my own decisions, and my own mistakes… although my marriage is not one of those!”
“Oh.”
For some of them this concept is as alien as the idea of arranged marriage for me. By now Moonho and I have been lucky enough to dine at a whole range of houses in India, and I would be bold enough to make one observation. Families that result from love marriages generally seem much more close-knit.
But the biggest tell-tale sign is the wife. Women of love marriages seem to have a higher status within a household. Such women will still prepare chai and dinner for you tirelessly, but they also smile and chat and try to interact with their guests. There tends to be a less stiff interaction been husband and wife, too – a gentle touch here, a soft whisper there… you know, normal things.
Women of arranged marriages… well, they are hard to observe because they are hardly ever around. When we went into their house they seemed to spend most of their time in the kitchen. I felt like a spoilt, ungrateful guest, allowing them to serve us endlessly without any reciprocal kindness or expression of thanks. But attempts at communication only seemed to result in discomfort. They tended to become stiff and careful as if on show in front of their husband’s guests.
We talked on this subject with No Worries Man, and he was open enough to tell us the story of how he had given up his one true love to marry the woman of his parent’s choice. When he gave her up he also gave up social drinking, frivolous spending of money, holiday-making (he spends every public holiday in the office)… anything except for work, in fact.
I found all this desperately sad, but Surender just shrugged with that fatalistic, wry grin of his. “I would never blame my parents,” he said. “Never. I just follow their desires. I am an obedient son.”
I’d met Surender’s mother, father and even grandmother (93 years old and still as fit as a fiddle or any other stringed instrument!) Theirs were among the most beautiful smiles I’d ever seen. They certainly didn’t look like unreasonable people. Had they always been of such an agreeable disposition, or was it a result of Surender’s choice of familial peace over his beloved lady? Could familial peace have been eventually achieved even if he had married the woman of his choice? I don’t know. I guess Surender didn’t think so (Surender – please feel free to leave comments on this blog!)
Me with Surender and his 93-year-old granny!
How easy the taste of love is allowed to trickle away, in India. Many will insist that love trickles away after marriage anyway; an outlook I’ve found common in Asia generally. For a crowd obsessed with love songs and movies, they can be a cynical bunch! It is clear, however, that Surender still covets the memory of his love like a cup of water in a dry wasteland. You’d think that one would hold onto the love itself rather than the memory. But Surender says that his memories are enough.
And now he wants to choose a wife for his nephew.
Most cultural traits I can come to understand, but the shape of this particular cultural idiosyncrasy is too different to the shape of the blocks that make up Leah. My Aussie accent may have petered out into something flatter and unidentifiable, and some Aussie characteristics might have faded under the international sun, but the fierce independence of the Australian woman can no more be scraped away from me than the patterns in an opal. As much as I love my parents, I wouldn’t put my life into their hands, nor would they want me to. After all, in what detail can another person, even if they are as genetically close as one gets, really see what you need? Some parents may know what makes their child’s heart tick… but are they looking at the big or little hand?
Well, there are no rules when it comes to human nature. But there are rules when it comes to society. Therefore, the applied rules are not always going to work.
I respect all other cultures – anyone who knows me will confirm this. But it is at times like this I am truly glad to be an Australian woman.
For more Delhi stories wait for the next instalment…!
