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Published: September 25th 2007
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Delhi work safety
...you may need to enlarge to see well Hello, my friend! Where are you from? I will skip on the 'hotel' room (300 rupies a night for a room with no windows except for a direct tube communicating with an Iveco engine placed on the roof, they tell me, to cover for when Government Electricity runs out, but I do not believe the explanation -- I prefer thinking that the noise, together with the run-down walls, the neon light standing on one nail, the dirty sheets, and all the goodies that come with an "affordable tourist hotel in the heart of Delhi" which for an unexplicable reason has a rooftop restaurant serving pure Korean food, all of this is part of a message that India has been sending to the world for the last 5 thousand years. Once I figure out what the message is about, I will keep you updated), and just tell you about the little daily obstacles one finds around here.
Yesterday I fell on one of the most common, despite warnings from the guide and my previous experience: the tourist guide. I was walking in the Muslim area of Old Delhi, and and the entrance of the Jama Masjid Mosque (the largest of the country)
I am greeted by a kind, aged, Indian who tells me that the mosque is currently closed for the 1 o clock prayer and offers to take me for a tour in the neighborhood for half an hour. "You pay me what you want". Fine with me, I say, why not, may be interesting -- and indeed, for the first 15 minutes it IS actually interesting, as he is keen on taking me on the narrow streets of the hindu neighborhood and showing me some very old houses ("you see, here everybody keeps door open, no stealing") with beautifully carved doors in Rajastani style (finely carved wood) or in sandstone with Kamasutra carvings, or a 4hundred years old Banyan tree growing out of a wall and (he says) resembling a man (I definitely disagree). After 15 minutes, I realize that the level of knowledge harnessed by my guide ("look there, this is a door, look there, this is a window") and a few other little details (a woman dressed in a colourful sari looks at me with an expression that tells me the entire history of this man's wonderings in the neighborhood) do not warrant for an unforgettable experience. Coupled
Red Fort Delhi
...Stendhal Syndrome with the fact that he has been asking me details of my profession, origin, family, etc etc all along so that he (thinks he) has a quite good picture of what he can squeeze out of me, when the tour ends on my request I am quite ready for the final showdown: "you know I charge 400 rupies an hour for my work, we've been here for 2 hours, so....". As usual, these transactions end on a bitter note -- after insisting for 15 minutes, attracting people from all over the street around us to hear the quarrel, and after seeing that I don't budge, he grabs the 70 rupies I offered him in the first place and runs away with a disgusted face shouting something which I am sure is not a compliment to my beautiful indian Kurta.
In the next days (once out of Delhi), I will have some more cheerful stories to tell -- though even in Delhi there were pleasant moments, like a beautiful 1 hour sleep I took on the grass at the Raj Ghat, a park in old Delhi around the site where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated. Ciao!
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velca
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I am From Perugia
Ho chiamato mamma per leggere il tuo blog in diretta ed รจ stato molto divertente soprattutto per il mio inglese... aspettiamo le novita' dei viaggi di Kipling in diretta con molto interesse, ogni tanto mandaci anche qualche bella foto. Ci manchi soprattutto alla nonna che chiede spesso di te. Questi giorni la vedo sempre sorridente quindi non ti preoccupare troppo per lei. Aspetto con ansia che cada un meteorite a Castel del Piano per scriverti tutti i dettagli di come gli alieni invadono il borgo. Ciaooooooooo