The Return to Sunder Nagar

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On our first visit to India, three years ago, we were lucky enough to be invited to visit the parents of a work mate of Marg's. We didn't realise just how lucky we were to take up this offer. Kavita's parents, Nimi & Rupi, live in the Sunder Nagar colony of New Delhi, probably comparable to the Toorak of Melbourne. I remember catching a cab from the airport to their address & being most impressed as we passed by some very nice areas of the city. We were then delighted to discover the house was a three storey structure. The top floor being the residence of our hosts & a second floor apartment that was to be ours for the stay. Further to this their household included the cook, the houseboy, a driver and a part-time cleaner.

Rupi is a retired Major-General of the Indian army and all for the Empire.

So, you can see we were quite protected compared to the usual Delhi tourist who lobs into an area near the train station, amid the crush & hurly burly of the touts & tricksters, and is soon suffering the curse of the Delhi belly. We were quite spoilt; breakfasts provided before we went out, an afternoon tea-tray in our room should we be home, & dinners the evenings we were not out. We could even get our clothing laundered. In fact, the hospitality felt too excessive, making us a little uncomfortable at times. We would try and compensate a little by bringing home some drink, snack or treat, but just had to learn to accept this very generous reception.
When we spoke to Nimi & Rupi about some of the travel we thought we might do here in India, it was they that suggested we use their home as a base and go off in one direction, return, recover, head off again, and repeat this cycle as many times as needed. This is pretty much what we did - sightseeing Delhi, visiting Varanasi, Rishikesh & touring Rajastan.

Our return to Sunder Nagar this time was at the tail end of 12 weeks of travelling where we feeling a little tired, a little home-sick & not that pressed to sightsee. The Sunder Nagar household was staffed at much the same level, but with new staff members & we were welcomed back to much the same routines as our previous visit. We felt we knew Delhi pretty well, having done the tourist bit last visit, so we only had to stroll around, shop a little - nothing urgent to do.

Last visit here Connaught Place, the New Delhi city centre, was all fenced off with the Delhi Metro under construction so it was really good to look this area over again with all those obstructions gone. We travelled via the metro to Old Delhi & Connaught Place. Each entry into the system involved a metal detector, a bag-search & a body frisk as there has been threats to Indian cities in recent months of bombings in public areas. The Metro did not contain any public toilets, either - an interesting choice by the construction authority, but would no doubt reduce/avoid a raft of other potential problems that could otherwise exist here. A very smooth, efficient system. In fact, any way of avoiding the roads here has got to be a good idea, & the trains are quick, clean, cheap & frequent. The only problem is getting off the trains as the commuters getting on have not developed the habit of standing back for those alighting & can often make a frenzied run to any vacant seat. The Metro system is still being developed with many more stations coming 'on line' before the 2010 Commonwealth Games here in Delhi.
We went to Old Delhi, the station quite near the Red Fort, as this is a busy market & shopping area for us to check out & gave us the opportunity to seek out Karim's. Karim's]/i] is a local restaurant that enjoys a very favourable reputation and a must see on a trip to the area. We found it after meandering around & asking many locals & had a very nice, but smallish, lunch (we were aware that Rupi was organising a chicken dish for our dinner).

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Comments

[Raman]

hi there
hi, I'm a design student and an architect here in India and I'm researching on the problems that tourists face while finding there way in Indian Cities. Please mail me your comments, ideas, observations on this. I'm based in Delhi and this research is for the improvement of signage systems in the city. Thanks Raman