Dilly (The real pronunciation)

For some reason it’s impossible to get a ticket out of Agra to Mumbai on a weekend so Emily and I reserved our last day to go to Delhi and fly home. We hadn’t bought tickets so Sunday morning we arrived and bought tickets to Delhi on the “superfast” train for approximately $1. The “superfast” train took 6 hours instead of 3 so we had to cut out a lot of our activities for the day.

We decided to go to a cheap guesthouse and buy a room to hold our stuff for the day so we didn’t have to carry it around. I must say, the Bazaar area of Delhi where we were, is the most overwhelming area I’ve been to yet. Our guesthouse was in this area and we had chosen it because it was cheap and located in an old mosque. It was very rundown with plywood like walls. Someone could have kicked down our door with much more ease than breaking the lock. I never would have stayed there for the night and I don’t suggest you do, but our luggage and backs were happy.

Our day in Delhi was the worst day of our trip. We arrived late and it was so amazingly hot, the hottest place I’ve been to yet. We were really hungry again because we had woken up so early (6am) that we hadn’t been able to get breakfast. We had to cancel many of our plans because of the late arrival but we stayed with our one scheduled activity.

A nonprofit in Delhi has daily tours of the street life for runaway kids. There’s a huge problem of runaways and the proceeds from the tour go to the kids’ programs. Our guide was an ex-street kid and “rescued” by the organization. I put rescue in quotes because it’s a decision to be taken in by the organization for the kids. Most of them don’t want to be rescued because living on their own they are able to make money and dictate how they live their lives. They have multiple schemes to make money as well as gangs to provide protection or a group atmosphere. Our guide described how he ran away at the age of 8 to Delhi because he was forced to live with an aunt who he didn’t like. He didn’t feel like his parents were ever going to return to get him and he was starting to be forced to miss school in order to help his aunt with house cleaning. When he arrived in Delhi he was taken in by another kid who taught him to collect empty water bottles, fill them with tap water and resell them to train passengers. There was a whole system to make money and not get caught however he was jailed twice and soon had to move locations.

He took us to a train station in Delhi to tour where many of the street kids. They live under roofs and all around the railway station. Many also smoke and drink but most are into huffing, buying glue and inhaling the fumes to get high and forget their problems. Our guide actually pointed out a kid who was doing this. He was sitting in ragged clothes on a flight of stairs leading to the overpass and had a ball of clothe stuffed in his nose. His eyes were completely vacant when he looked at us and it appeared that he was restricting blood flow to his lower limbs by tying straps around his legs. The non-profit provides daily meals and an education center for the children who don’t want to live in the shelter. Our guide said that’s what he did for a long time before he decided he wanted off the street life and to live in the shelter. He lived at the shelter for 7 years and only just moved out as he got a job.

The guide’s speech seemed really rehearsed but I think the organization really wanted him to touch on his inner feelings so tourists can relate. He gave personal reflections on each part of his life and it seemed fake at first, the contemplating and sifting through old stories, but I think the speech is just more compiled so he was trying to tell it linearly.

This tour made the whole trip to Delhi and I’m really glad that included with all the splendor of the trip was a large dose of reality as well.

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Part of trip: India

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