Delhi - morning coffee

After touring the Taj Mahal and Fort Bahdra in Agra yesterday we loaded up and drove to Delhi for our final day. The Taj Mahal was stunning of course and awesome. However, it seems almost heresy to say this, but I tend to agree with Diana’s assessment that I thought it would be bigger. I guess after all the years of looking at pictures and hearing about it perhaps it does become bigger than reality. Anyways, a truly memorable experience and a stunning structure. Also a fascinating story to go with it.
It was another long day driving in the van. The trip was unremarkable relative to our daily travels. Which is to say that it was packed with sites and sounds that will take me months and possibly years to adequately process. For an average Canadian the simple act of being driven around in India is endlessly fascinating. If anyone tells you otherwise, I would check their pulse. We got lost in Delhi for a while and so we arrived at our hotel around 6:30 pm. Delhi strikes me as a city with a slightly higher standard of living than the others we’ve seen, but it might just be where we were driving. Our hotel is modest but adequate. It is unfortunately situated along a hotel strip and there are tourist haggler’s and hawker’s by the score. You have to keep your eyes fixed forward and walk with purpose to keep them at bay. Most of them are agents working for other hotels and they are trying to get you to switch hotels. I was looking for an internet connection and quickly learned that either I had to switch to a hotel with a connection or I had to give up all of my personal ID to get on-line. I think they might be selling the information to the call centre shops all over India. Whenever they insist on a phone number, I write down my parent’s defunct Winnipeg number. I found one place that wasn’t asking for too much info but then they wanted to photocopy my passport. So, I walked out. Unlike other businesses, they didn’t follow me out begging me to come back and lowering the price. It was obvious that what they wanted was my information, not my business. The Cyber Café owners seem to revel in the fact (and I guess I don’t blame them) that they actually have something that the tourists really want and they make us go to ridiculous lengths just to get 30 minutes of time to check e-mail. They don’t realize they are actually undermining themselves. A foreigner should open a customer friendly Cyber Café here – they would do a booming business.
The next morning I gave up the hunt for an internet connection and just went for a walk and to find a good cup of black coffee (I’m getting a little tired of the milky and sweet Indian coffee). Instead of doing my tourist march-walk, I just relaxed and whistled lightly while carrying my newspaper. The reaction on the street was fascinating. I turned from a business target into an interesting foreigner. I was still approached by rickshaw drivers and shoe polishers but they just asked politely and when I said no they engaged me in other conversation. A young boy (well, maybe not so young, I’ve realized that young adult Indians generally seem to look much younger to me than they actually are) who started out wanting to polish my shoes finally gave up the sales pitch and just walked beside me telling me about how he lost his parents and now supports his brother. I love wandering around like this and letting the encounters happen. I feel sorry for the women in our group who aren’t really safe doing this. It’s a marvelous experience. Diana intends to travel alone to the south of India for the next three weeks. She is smart and careful and will be in for some great experiences. I have not felt unsafe or threatened once on this trip.
Today it’s Republic Day in Delhi and most of the shops are closed this morning. So, I went back the hotel for my coffee. Turns out they have good coffee! So, I sit in the lobby (they only have room service, no restaurant) reading my paper and enjoying the coffee. The doors are open and as I read the clip clop of horse hoofs over the cobble stone street wafts into the lobby, carried along by a cool morning breeze. The concierge, sitting on the solid marble steps (this is a modest hotel, but still has marble everywhere, it seems to be as plentiful as chip board in Manitoba), starts to sing quietly in Hindi. It’s a perfect morning cup of coffee.
Ivan, Karen and I had a good discussion about what we are taking from this trip over supper last night. I’m so impressed with Ivan. Just 26 years old, married 1 month and so wise and passionate about fair trade and micro economic development and a committed man of faith. I pray that Luke also sees what a giant of a man this is and how blessed we’ve been to be hosted by him. In hindsight, I think that as a young man I failed to recognize some of the great men and women that I was blessed to encounter and I missed great opportunities to learn and develop. It’s also important for “older” men, like me, to realize that we have lessons to learn from young adults.
I’m going home today and I’m anxious to see my wife, children and friends again, but there’s an ache in my heart for this country. I doubt that I’ll ever be able to think about this trip without that accompanying ache.