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Published: January 14th 2011
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Three once-upon-a-time Peace Corps volunteers, who lived in north India, Punjab specifically, during the mid-'60s, return to visit their old stations, see sights they remember from their earlier travels and see a few things they may have missed.
That is essentially what this blog will relate: As we approach the terminal we see a heavy haze. After going through passport control, which seems more designed to slow the incoming passengers so that there isn't too big a crush at the baggage carousel. No matter, it becomes a crush anyway.
Our driver, Ashoka Kumar, a Himalchal man he tells us, is waiting for us at 2 in the morning to take us to our hotel.
Here's my immediate response to the family in a first E-mail:
In the middle of the night, as we being driven in to our hotel from the airport, my partners are commenting on the smog.
"No smog," says the driver Kumar, "is fog. Before it was so heavy you could not see ten meters in front of you.
We wake this morning and take a stroll to an ATM machine. It is every bit as dirty and third world looking as we expected here in Delhi. You can't go ten steps without a shoeshine boy trying to get you to stop for a 10 Rupee shine, which will go to 5 Rupees if you keep insisting "no" or keep walking.
There are independent dogs everywhere, living on the street, not in packs so much as like small families. The puppies come to you without fear while the mothers look starved and the males are scruffy but proud.
Oh, and that fog--it really is some sort of smog.
The hotel is not much. Breakfast was good. Mixed Omelet made right there on the line has hot peppers. Coffee is instant Nescafe. Bedrooms vary, bathrooms are sketchy..
Around the corner are a KFC, a Pizza hut and a McDonalds. Hard to keep the same standards as in US and Europe.
Not bad for my first sleepy impression.
This is now early on Saturday. It's hard to sleep, so I'm catching up.
We remember it being crowded. New Delhi is now beyond crowded. We remember what seemed like broad avenues at the time with some graceful older buildings and a feeling of space, Now, even with wider streets
with more lanes on some roads, it seems as if any pleasant vista is gone. There are many more buildings encroaching everywhere.
Some appear in the process of falling down, others of going up. The ones falling down and the ones going up all seem to be the same shoddy construction. Debris from these buildings is everywhere at their bases. This matches the trash that clutters—no, fills—every vacant nook and cranny along every street and road. Seemingly ownerless dogs are everywhere, barely scratching out a living. They compete for whatever is edible with the homeless people, who also are everywhere and occupying any available piece of public ground.
There are people who stake out a half-meter of open space in the median between four lanes of traffic; their belongings and cook pots within the narrow confines of a half-meter wide by 7 or so meters long. Children balance on the concrete barriers, feet sticking out into the traffic, their entertainment watching the traffic and pulling their feet back before they get swiped by a vehicle.
Traffic is uncontrolled chaos. There is no other way to describe it. I have seen police at work. They appear to be concerned
with getting the details in the aftermath of an accident, Prevention is not their concern.
Here, as in England or Japan, driving is to the left—generally. If it suits and a driver feels it will give him advantage, he will drive down the opposing lane against traffic. There is no such thing as there not being any traffic. Traffic is either moderate, temporarily, or completely immoderate. Pedestrians put their lives in the hands of God and cross wherever they can, Where there are no barriers, they occupy as much of street space as they can. There is a constant din of horns and buzzers from cars, trucks, three wheeled motorized and peddle-propelled rickshaws. The motored ones are called Tuk-tuks.
Bullock carts also go down the same lanes and roads. Huge loads are pushed in carts by human power or balanced on a bicycle rickshaw. Bearers still carry items for people who are too wealthy to bother with lifting a load. Motorcycles, scooters and bicycles are as ubiquitous as pedestrians as just as predictable. After all, if it was your habit while walking to meander through traffic, why change now that you can zip in-between and in front of
traffic.
Lest I forget, add buses and cargo trucks to the mix. As we were going to eat dinner, I saw a man knocked down by a bus-- he appeared to bounce right up and possibly, since it was a government-owned bus, he may have done it deliberately.
The roads are simply awful. Poor construction. Rapid decline by pothole and ditching (if a trench is run across a lane, it appears to be sufficient to try to fill it in with dirt—there is no question of resurfacing). The sidewalks are worse. They barely cover the sewer lines. They are narrow and usually occupied by a street vendor, a shoeshine boy, a homeless person and the occasional pile of feces, dog or human and hard to tell the difference. Hence most folks walking in the street.
There are traces of beauty. Perhaps we will see more tomorrow. What I have spoken little of is that many of the people we meet are friendly, helpful sometimes (as in they would like to help but their English is difficult to understand—as our Hindi is remarkably deteriorated) and manage to carry on despite all the obstacles that a pervasive bureaucratic city
government has created by neglect and poor quality control.
Enough! Maybe another hour of sleep before breakfast.
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