Overwhelming India

7/28/13

India is…overwhelming. I arrived in India about three days ago, and have been staying Delhi. Delhi is huge, hot, crowded, and at times smelly, and at other times fragrant. But pungent, all the time. I am staying with a friend with a neighborhood in South Delhi called Aleknanda. It is a normal, residential neighborhood with large apartment buildings, and small market areas. Aleknanda, like much of Delhi, has no sidewalks. People walk in the streets battling cars, auto rickshaws, motorcycles, and other pedestrians. There is lots of garbage lining the street. The part of the street where there is supposed to be a sidewalk is currently an open ditch where workers are building some kind of large pipe. I am told that the ditch has been there for several years. The ditch is also filled with garbage. The stench of garbage, still water, and cow shit emanates almost everywhere. It is quite overwhelming.

Delhi is a strange city. It is very large and very sprawling. It is made up of many small, dense, compact neighborhoods connected by large roads and highways. At the center is New Delhi, the planned city that the British built. New Delhi is ridiculous. Everything is enormous and of grand scale. It is obvious they built New Delhi to impress, not for people. Every road has four lanes in either direction, and no cross walks. Every official building is gigantic and surrounded by almost moat-like greenery separating it from the street. The main attraction of New Delhi is known as the Rajpath. Imagine the National Mall in Washington, D.C. with much less to see. The Rajpath goes from the presidential palace on one end to the India on the other. The India Gate is another gaudy arch in the style of the Arch de Triumph. The Rajpath consists of two one way roads that have 5 lanes each and two very large, very wide areas of greenery for pedestrians. However, oddly enough, the Rajpath has no walkway. Pedestrians must trample through the mud to talk its length.

            The rest of New Delhi is just as grand and large-scaled as the Rajpath. The streets are all wide, and are surrounded on each side by the large residences of members of Parliament, ambassadors, judges, and the wealthy. They live in large houses surrounded by 10 foot walls facing the street. So walking down the street in New Delhi means walking on the side of a wide street surrounded by walls. It can be quite unnerving.

            To north of New Delhi is Old Delhi, the older, denser, more chaotic an intense part of Delhi. That is the only way I can describe Old Delhi: intense. Today I went to Old Delhi to visit the bazaars and see the old city. As soon as you exit the train station, you are greeted by a wall of humidity, and giant crowds going every which way. To get to the street you walk down a long alley crowded with carts selling everything from brushes and umbrellas to shoes and stationary. Once you get to the street, it is equally as crowded and intense. Where there is a sidewalk, it is swallowed up by sellers hawking their wares, and the masses of other pedestrians. Many people choose to walk in the street and compete with cars and rickshaws rather than compete with other people.

Once you step into a side street from the main road, you are in the bazaars. The bazaars are a giant maze of tiny, winding roads intersecting with one another, with each road leading down to another part of the bazaar selling a different grouping of items. There is an area for jewelers, one for apparel, an area for book sellers, furniture, etc. The tiny streets are absolutely packed. People, cars, and bicycle rickshaws all crowd the small streets. Pedestrians push you to the side to get by, the cycle rickshaws yell and ring their bells, and the drivers honk relentlessly. That is actually a part of being on the road in India, constant honking. The whole time, you are breathing in the smell of urine, garbage, and a thousand different spices. For someone who has just arrived in India, it is a lot to deal with. Walking slow to look around slows the flow of pedestrian traffic, so people kind of push me to the side to get around. At the same time, you must be aware of the cars and motorcycles rushing by. It is loud, with sellers yelling about their wares, people negotiating prices, and cars honking. It is an environment that engages all five senses at once.

As I said, overwhelming.