A Capital Time in Delhi

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I have to say that Delhi has been my favorite part of India thus far. When planning for this entire semester, the one thing that I absolutely knew I had to see was the Baha’i Lotus Temple in the capital city of the nation. We arrived in Delhi on a Friday morning, settled into the YWCA hostel, and then split off to enjoy our free afternoon.

Tessa and I, feeling adventurous, hailed a rickshaw and asked the driver to take us to the house of worship. We thought we would spend about an hour there and then move on to some other tourist attractions, but I think in the long run we were both thankful that we didn’t set our plans in stone.

The house of worship is constructed to resemble a lotus flower, an important religious symbol in India. It has nine petals and is surrounded by nine pools so that from the sky it looks as though it is floating on water. Aesthetically, it is beautiful; spiritually, it is stunning. Visitors are asked to remain silent while in the main worship hall, which creates a great environment for meditation. The Baha’is are very upfront about welcoming people of all religions to meditate, worship, and praise God with them. Tessa and I spent the entire time we had planned on dedicating to that neighborhood in just the temple itself. Then, of course, there was the library and the bookshop, which each inspired twice as many questions as they answered, so we couldn’t walk away without visiting the information center.

Again, the plan was to spend just a bit of time in the information center, but both Tessa and I fell into conversation with some of the volunteers working there. They were open about their faith journeys and personal inquiry and investigation and had a lot of information to share about their faith. Tessa and I ended up walking out with them as they closed the center for the night.

Saturday morning was an early one. Not bright, though, it was too early for that. Silk seemed to float all around us as we were getting ready. Petticoats were tied tight around our waists, blouse pieces fastened securely, and pleats were folded, shaped, adjusted, reshaped, unfolded, and completely redone as we all got ready for our big visit to the Taj Mahal. After primping and pressing until the last possible moment, we all climbed onto buses for a four hour ride to Agra. I can’t imagine anything more uncomfortable for a four hour bus ride than a sari, nor can I fathom a better way of messing up carefully folded pleats than to shift awkwardly about in a bus trying to make yourself comfortable for the ride. It was ok, though, because when we reached our destination, there was an abundance of Indian women willing to help us retie our garments better than we had done them in the first place; they all make it seem so easy!

Visiting the Taj was the touristiest thing I can ever imagine doing in my life. After all, it is one of the new seven world wonders. It took nearly an hour to get all of the pictures everybody wanted taken, including the classic SJPD shot of everybody dressed up in their Indian garb. The line to get in was long, of course, and the tour of the building itself was extremely hurried. We posed with unending lines of nationals who apparently thought that foreigners were just as amusing as a world wonder. Hey, though, now we can all say that we’ve seen it, and I guess, sometimes, that’s what it’s about.

We got back to our hostel late Saturday night, too late to eat in the cafeteria, so Tessa and I decided to give Indian fast food a try. Here, fast food basically means that you don’t expect to sit in a comfy booth to eat it, not necessarily that you’ll actually get it faster than in any other restaurant. I ordered chicken and Tessa ordered veg curry “in parcel” (to go). And then we watched it made from scratch right in front of us, not pulled out from under a heating lamp. Instead of being passed across the counter in a bag loudly announcing the name of the establishment, food is put in simple plastic bags that you would never think of putting edibles in at home, tied tightly so that none of the liquid spills. We felt a little sketch about consuming such an understated meal, but I don’t think McNuggets could ever compare to that organic, made-fresh greatness.

On Sunday we had a half-day tour of Delhi, more tourist traps included. We did, however, get to see the Gandhi memorial, which was quite a moving experience. They have various inspirational quotes lining the path of the last steps he took before his assassination. The memorial is beautifully done and expresses well the nation’s reasons for upholding Gandhi as a hero.

Our tour finished up just in time for us to meet up with Ben, one of the Baha’i volunteers. Ben is also on a semester abroad, leading weekly inter-faith dialogue meetings as part of his independent study on religions. He was one of the people we had chatted with on Friday, and he invited me to go to that week’s meeting, I showed up with three fellow SJPDers and we all got a lot out of the conversation in which various religions’ views on social teachings were presented. After the meeting, Ben invited us to go meet up with some of the other volunteers from the temple for dinner. From my journal that night:

“Everybody was extremely nice and welcoming; there was a huge commotion when we got there to make sure we all had places to sit, and then the guys still seated repeatedly stood up to let the guys who had already given up their seats sit down again- a great game of musical chairs, and a near disaster when the food they had already ordered came.

Note- dinner that night was the best I’ve enjoyed in ages, but after we left, I couldn’t decide if it was because the food was really exceptional or if it was the incredible company that made it seem so.”

Here, again, all of the Bahai’s were extremely open about their faith. Most of them were Arabs, a number of them from Iraq, and throughout the course of our meal as everybody smiled and laughed together, I couldn’t help but think that this is what religion should do. Our countries are at war, but in the name of faith and inquiry, we were brought to the same table to share our food, our ideas, and our spirit.

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