Urgh. Did not want to get up this morning. So so tired. But I’ve got a full day ahead and need to get crack-a-lacking. So I set out for my first day in India, into the dust, noise, pollution, cram of people and bad smells. First on my list is Qutb Minar, which I am told is an easy walk, and I guess 5km is an easy walk, but a bit longer than I’d like. So I get my first auto-rickshaw ride and arrive about an hour after sunrise. Perfect timing. The light touches the ruins of the mosques, minarets, tombs and courtyards in a very romantic manner, and I’m immediately glad this is the first thing I got to see in India.
I leap from the bus at my next destination, Tughluqabad, the ruins of an old city and fortress built in the 1400s. I buy my ticket and go left first, towards the part of the city overgrown with scrubland. I walk for a little ways, following a couple Indian women past several ruins of minarets and gigantic wells, until I come to a field where some teenage boys are playing cricket. I’m watching some women chopping down trees with machetes, but I can see the boys coming towards me out of the corner of my eye. One gets the moxie to say, “Hello, madam. Country you from?” I answer, they giggle, then he says “Folk”. I’m obviously confused because he says it again. Then I notice his friends are hiding their laughter and realize he’s saying “Fuck”. I walk off fighting the urge to slap him and to a chorus of “Kiss please!” “I love you!” “Kiss, pretty lady, kiss kiss!” Oh dear god.
I then walk to the right side of the ruins where I’m chastised for inadvertently walking onto a movie set. That’s right, I got to see them film a scene for a Bollywood movie (no, they weren’t dancing)! A man ushers me across the set but doesn’t go back after walking with me for a while. Then he starts telling me about the ruins and I realize he’s trying to be a guide for me. He tells me how there were underground shops and a lake around the king’s tomb (which is now across a street and surrounded by scrubland) and battlements and a women’s mosque and gardens and more. He’s very nice and quite knowledgeable, and I’m happy to give him Rs20 bakshish (like gratuity or a tip) for the quick tour.
Walking down the road to the taxi stand I pass women carrying two columns of six bricks on their head, a family of rhesus monkeys (which I give an extremely wide berth), another man saying “Kiss pretty lady!”, men peeing in public (oh, if I had a nickel for every time I ended up seeing this in India), an absolute mob of school children (“Hello aunty! Hello!”), horse- and oxen-drawn carts and several military bases. The smell makes me want to vomit: urine, feces (from animals and people), rotting garbage, cattle, putrid standing water and other things I’m sure I can’t imagine. I find a touk-touk and ask to go to the Bahai Lotus Temple. The man at the ticket stand at Tugh. said it should cost about 40 rupees, but my touk-touk man is saying 150. I say 40, he says 100, and eventually we settle on 50 or 60 (still a bit more than it should be). I feel pretty good about myself until I realize that I’m basically saving $1.20 and that’s what this guy probably makes in a day.
Near the end of my time in Tughluqabad and definitely as I’m walking down the street is when I start to feel sick. Not nauseas, but rather worn down and like I’m breathing smoke. My lungs are having a hard time with the pollution and dust levels, despite the fact that I keep my scarf wrapped around my face most of the time. I’m glad to be sitting down for a while, even if it means bouncing through potholes bigger than a basketball and nearly colliding with a hundred other cars, touk-touks, bikes, carts, animals and pedestrians.
The Lotus Temple is, in a word, beautiful. White marble “petals” open above nine milky blue pools and stand in the center of an expanse of well-landscaped gardens. Inside you can see all the way to the top of the lotus where they have stained glass in the shape of the Bahai sign for peace. It’s completely silent inside and you’re welcome to meditate as long as you would like. I sit for a while and think about my day, my expectations for India that have already both been met and blown out of the water, but I’m not feeling particularly prayerful. I’m still not feeling 100% and these marble benches are uncomfortable so I’m ready to go after fifteen minutes. On my way out I remember there’s an enormous Bahai temple in Chicago, which I saw on my first day living there (a nice parallel, I think) and am excited to go back to see it in March.
Walking on the temple grounds is very peaceful and I appreciate a chance to collect my thoughts and take my time. It’s only 1, but it’s India’s winter and the sun will set at 5 so it feels quite late in the day already. I decide to skip Ashoka’s Rock Edict, a rock with 10 lines of ancient Sanskrit on it, and head off down the hill looking for my next bus. PS: In India, every bus stop is required to have a minimum amount of flies, so bring a scarf to cover your head. The 500 takes me up to the neighborhood of Nizamuddin, which the guide book describes as “like stepping back into the Middle Ages”. This sounds terribly romantic to me, until we get closer and the smell reminds me that the Middle Ages were a pretty shitty time to be alive for most people.
I’m here to see the dargah (tomb) of Nizamuddin and his daughter, Princess Jahanara. Her grave only has grass growing on it, according to her wishes, which sounds so serene. I won’t be able to see it, though, because it is closed for cleaning or maintenance or something like that. Not that I’m complaining; this is my first day and I’m not sure I’m ready to spend too long in this type of neighborhood, yet. I ask a nearby policeman how far it is to my final destination, Lodi Gardens, and he says a rickshaw can get me there for about 20-30 rupees. After heavy negotiations with several drivers wanting 80 rupees, I get a cycle rickshaw for 50. I guess cops get discounts.The end of this ride was the first time I wanted to cry. The driver stops at a gigantic intersection with hundreds of cars and says Lodi is on the other side. I thought he might not want to risk going through it because crossing on foot actually is easier. So I pay him his inflated Rs50, cross the street and see NOTHING. I find a couple of women who say it’s another kilometer down the street and that my driver probably just took advantage of me. As I walk, I start thinking about all the scams I had been so careful to avoid and the haggling I had done and how few people you can really trust here. I’m tired and sad and I kind of melt down a little.
The second time I want to cry is when I enter the gardens. Like the rest of India, it’s covered in trash. Not the mounds and piles that people here sweep from one spot to another, but just general rubbish sprinkled around what is supposed to be a national treasure. There are signs pleading for responsible ownership of the park that might as well have been written in Dutch. The beautiful tombs are surrounded by rolling, grassy hills and joggers and families are enjoying the sunset. Everywhere there are groups of people and I start to feel very lonely watching the sun go down thousands of miles away from my family and friends. Maybe I’m just tired and tomorrow will be better. Or maybe I should have gone home for Christmas, after all. I don’t even fight my emotions this time, just try to hide my tears as best I can from the Indians. They stare at me enough as it is.
