Squalor and splendor...an utter assault on the senses. I started my first morning in Old Delhi with my mouth hung open marveling at every sight I was seeing, and envisioning the fantastic pictures that I was going to capture. Although the "sites" we saw were amazing, it was the scenes of everyday life that had my mouth hanging open. By end of the day I could not hear nor understand a single thing our guide was saying. My brain was shut down for the day. It truly was a sensory overload. Between the sheer mass of people and cars and bikes and animals, all coming at you from every side, and the continual screech of horns blaring all around, an untrained brain just cannot take much more than day.
Observations. Delhi is one giant trash depository. I cannot understand what is in the Indian psyche that makes it ok to treat every inch of open land as their personal trash can. Why cannot the government make a simple investment of a million trashcans and place throughout the city? From what I was told when I asked this question, the answer is that the trashcans will be stolen....
Shifting of the masses. Getting to places is obviously necessary for the 14 million people who inhabit Delhi. There are roads which, for the most part, appear to be in decent condition. Every day 14 million people share these roads to get to wherever they need to go. They walk, drive in tuktuks, ride bicycles, ride on the back of cars, ride on the top of cars, cram 100 people into a trailer behind a tractor, ride in carts behind steers, etc. But they all share the same road at the same time. I am not quite sure what the hierarchy is, but I am pretty sure the bigger your mode of transportation the higher you are. However, being bigger is definitely not better because when driving in India it is the equivalent of a downhill ski slalom except that you are dodging oncoming traffic (in your lane!), in addition to pigs, cows, elephants, camels and all of the before mentioned modes of transportation! It is absolutely indescribable!
These pictures were all taken from our car as we were driving (or, rather as our driver was driving!)
Horns. Horns are as vital to the driver as a steering wheel. I don’t think horns are used here as a means of expressing outrage at the driver in front of you, rather they seem to be an intricate part of the dance that is driving in India. Drivers seem to use their horns as a method of communication with the other thousands of vehicles around them. The majority of heavy trucks even have “please horn” written on the back of their loads. It is a never-ending constant symphony of horns wherever you go - and it NEVER stops!
The people. This is the first place that I have been where I was literally gawked at. I wore a sleeveless dress that hit below my knee. You would have thought I was in a negligee. I even had several try to secretly take pictures of me! I would not say the people here are overwhelmingly friendly, they are not unfriendly, but definitely look at you like you are from outer space...although now that I write that, for the majority of Indians we may as well be from outer space because they surely have never been outside of India. The folks in the hotel and at the tourist restaurants are all very warm, but I cannot say that about the average person you see on the street. I do not feel unsafe, but I also don’t sense that if something were to happen to me that I would be rushed to with assistance. I suppose that this has something to do with their strange ability to overlook people sleeping on the street, children running around as gypsies and the mass amounts of disgusting garbage everwhere you look. For as much as they seem to practice modesty in clothing (men too, for I have yet to see shorts on any human here), you will see men urinating on the streets. If there is a wall or pile of rubble, they consider it their personal urinal. Although they turn their backs to the main flow of traffic, there is obviously not much left to the imagination.
However, I found taking pictures of the people was my favorite part of the trip. The colors of the saris were beautiful and bright in the midst of dirt and mud. The children always lit up when they saw a camera. Witnessing the daily life of people in India was like being dropped into the middle of a National Geographic photo shoot.
After talking with our guides, people in restaurants, etc. I have come to see what the caste system really means. My original thought on this was pretty superficial. I correctly had assumed that a certain caste does not “affiliate” with people from a lower caste. They certainly cannot marry from a “lower” caste. I naively thought that it ended there. I truly had never comprehended before this how deep that sentiment runs. When my mom asked (numerous times) if the economic success of India was trickling down to the mass amounts of people living in squalor, we got the same resonse every time. They did not care. They did not care if these people ever prospered or ever improved their lot in life. They simply do not consider them at all. I would go so far as to say that they would give any of the stray animals a second thought before they would a human being that was an “undesirable.” The poverty I saw everywhere was overwhelming, but the complete and total disregard for another human being’s existence on such a grand scheme blew me away.
The land. It is Mexican squalor on steroids. I have yet to see anything that looks even remotely new. Everything is a rubble. Even the 5 star hotels don’t seem to be 5 star hotels because of the rubble and garbage that surrounds it. Buildings fall down and they are seemingly left for the homeless to create their own personal dream home. Road repair seems to be started and then looks abandoned. I am surprised however at how much open space exists. There are walled “parks” that are hundreds of acres all over the place. Some belong to places such as the minister memorial park, the red fort, etc. You can only imagine what splendor they must have once been as you can see the outline of old pools and gardens. For now, they are simply open spaces filled with weeds, dirt, grass and some straggly looking trees. I am quite certain there are no "zoning" laws...as there does not seem to be a rhyme or reason for where any particular building is placed. Except for the few areas we saw with government housing (not “projects” for the poor...these are low rise apartments for the “officials”) I have not seen endless high rise apartments as I would have thought would exist for housing 14 million people. As for the government housing, if these run down slabs of cement are for the “elite” you can sadly imagine what the non-elite live in. I really don’t know where the common man lives. I have not been able to decipher what is a shop or a living arrangement. I have a feeling they are one in the same. I can tell, however, where squatters live. They make their home wherever they can find space to raise a tarp. They are literally squeezed in everywhere.
Did I mention the dogs??
Now, for the real reason we went to India. We went primarily to see the Taj Mahal. You know how sometimes you go and see something you have always dreamed of seeing - and it turns out to be disappointingly small (the Sphinx)? Or not as "grand" as you had always seen it in your mind (Sydney Opera House)? Well....this was absolutely not the case with the Taj Mahal. You catch your first view as you enter through a gate in the wall that surrounds it...and that first glimpse caught my breath. It was like I had walked into a photograph. The sky was perfectly blue, the sun was setting behind us and casting a beautiful glow onto the incredibly white marble of the Taj Mahal. It truly and honestly did not disappoint and in fact was more beautiful in person.
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| I met this family visiting the Taj Mahal and after photographing her children, the mother asked to be in a photo with me as well. |
I have to admit that aside from the building you see above, I knew exceedingly little about India's history with the exception of the chapter in high school where we learned about British Colonialism. I came here not knowing much about the Moghul Dynasty and even less about the convergence of Islamic and Hindu art and architecture when the Muslims came into power. The forts and palaces scattered throughout the area we visited (Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, Amber) were amazing. The forts (Red Fort in Delhi and Amber Fort outside of Jaipur) were huge! I have never seen a structure as large as these...
And the stone carvings and palaces were equally beautiful.
I think India changes you, or at the very least, keeps your own life in perspective.....
