10-8-10

I was awake from about 3-6am, due to jet lag as well as the bout of insomnia which has been bothering me since I arrived. I finally fell asleep only to be rudely awakened by my alarm going off at 9am. i was planning to leave at 10am to go see my friend Tanya to go shopping. I had asked Sunny to have a rickshaw called so that I could take the long journey into Delhi from the southern suburb of Noida. And then I got a harsh reminder of a part of the culture in India; plans don't really operate according to time. there is no sense of urgency or push to stick to any particular schedule. I informed him that I was ready to go and he said something to the effect of "yea yea sure sure no problem we'll go". Only to be followed by him having a lengthy chat with a young man interested in working with him for domestic help. Then he just had to attend to some business on the computer. I was getting impatient at this point and concerned because I had an unpredictable wait in Delhi morning traffic between Tanya's house and I. We actually got into his car and were about to head out when he reconsidered his plans and decided he would get some work to do while out that day. At this point I asked him to please drop me at her house in Delhi because a rickshaw would make me two hours late at least. He agreed and we went back into the house "just for a minute" which of course turned into almost half an hour. I called Tanya to apologize and inform her I was running late, but fortunately she was not surprised and totally understood the pace at which things happen here in India. After Sunny chatted some more with his employees about something I could not understand as it was all in Hindi, we finally got into the car.
His car had been in an accident recently, his friend had mishandled the clutch and sent it stalling into a neighbors garden, missing the gardeners by a stroke of luck. The window on the drivers side had fallen into the door but he had wrestled with it until he could pull it out manually and press the button while wrangling it into place. He had picked up some hash recently and insisted on crumbling it up while driving which made the driving in Delhi slightly more treacherous than usual. I literally held the wheel to keep us going straight as he broke up the brown block and added tobacco. The saving grace of driving in Delhi is that one never gets going very fast due to the incessant overlapping and cutting off which is the norm of the traffic here. I really believe an informative lesson of physics can be taught through the traffic in New Delhi. The cars, bikes, trucks and cows weave around each other, coming within what must be centimeters of one another regularly. I used to hold on tightly and catch my breath whenever the car came within a hairs breadth of another vehicle but at this point just trust the intriguing sense of space which the drivers have and leave it up to fate. Sunny lit his joint and I tried to breath  as little as possible because the tobacco smell left my stomach in knots. We reached Tanya's neighborhood and drove around aimlessly asking people where her block was, getting mixed answers which sent us in opposite directions until we finally located her house.
Tanya and her two younger sisters spent time every summer in Delhi to visit their maternal grandmother. I had visited her here when I was in India two years ago and went in to greet her extended family. The house was chaotic with her cousin visiting from Dubai, her mother sick with fever, a random backpacking American boy hanging out until his flight home in a few days, inadvertently offered a place to crash because his travel buddy knew Tanya's middle sister. A stocky, seasoned white dog guarded her grandmother, growling ferociously albeit not making anyone nervous due to his small size and elderly ability to move. We piled into her driver's car and headed to the shopping destination of choice; Sarojini Nagar.
Sarojini is an outdoor market area filled with stall after stall of clothing both Western and traditional Indian. The western clothes are either fake designer, or the leftover imperfect pieces of well known stores, and most likely some of it stolen from some truck or another. Haggling is the expectation, despite signs of "fixed price" and Tanya drives a hard bargain, encouraging me to walk away if the salesmen didn't drop it down to the equivalent of $3. I ended up paying up to $10 for pieces which at home would have cost me five times as much. The shopping is done by surveying the items hanging on the walls all over the stall and pointing them out, ascertaining if they will fit, and then bargaining. Sometimes the pieces are too big or too small and usually there is just one available size. Fortunately Tanya and I are on the slimmer side and able to guess that most will fit us, although there is nowhere to try things on. The process is entertaining but at times overwhelming because if you are not strict the men will practically force items into your hand and then expect you to purchase it. Not having fluency in Hindi made haggling more of a challenge, but most of the men are familiar with English when it comes to money. After about an hour of patrolling the lanes and stocking up on T-shirts, dress shirts, summer dresses and the occasional skirt, it began to downpour. We hung out in one large stall for awhile until it began to flood and the floor turned to mud at which point we ran through the rain avoiding the largest puddles and sinkholes of mud and jumped into the waiting car. At Tanya's house we went through our purchases, showing each other like we were kids on halloween night showing off our candy. Tanya and I dried off and walked around South Ex market, meandering through shoe stores just to enjoy the air conditioning, until her friend picked us up and we headed to an old fort. Tuqualabad fort was made up of light brown colored stones and extended 6 kilometers around including a mosque. The ruins of this once massive and formidable fortress were now filled with grass and occupied by monkeys. We wandered around imagining the place in its day, nearly 800 years ago. By now Sunny was ready to pick me up but due to the Indian cultural version of "we're leaving now we'll be there soon" it wasn't until nearly an hour later that he picked me up at Tanya's house, thoroughly annoyed. I pointed out to him that we had kept them waiting that morning, and he reminded himself that he had kept me waiting at the airport so we called a truce and headed back to Noida.
After driving for about half an hour stuck in the evening rush hour traffic, meaning the car moved about 2 feet every five minutes, his car began to make an odd clicking noise. "Uhoh"he said under his breath as he put on the hazard lights and the car wheezed its way leftward. Motorcycles, cars and buses whizzed past us, honking more than usual which is a feat, and I tried not to imagine the buses slamming into me as the passenger side is on the left. Thankfully we made it to the side of the road and the car hissed to a stop. Sunny popped open the hood and casually suggested that I get out of the vehicle as it was so hot it could potentially catch on fire. I wasted no time in leaping out and jumping over the lane of garbage which borders most roads. I watched as a traffic guard shouted at Sunny to move the car off the road and the two pushed it over to the road on the left. Sunny poured bottles of cold water onto the hood which instantly evaporated into steam, prompting me to imagine how quickly I would have turned into ashes had the car ignited. Sunny got me some delicious juice, which was risky considering it was off the street and I wasn't sure what was in it, but it tasted tangy and refreshing so I took my chances. The front of the hood was lined with a loose gray cloth which reminded me of the lint picked up by an automatic dryer. Sunny and I tested lighting a piece to see if it was indeed flammable but fortunately it didn't catch. Eventually the engine cooled down and we cautiously got back in. As we edged out into traffic, a feat I would never be able to accomplish without a serious amount of panic, I held the seat tightly as if that would protect me. He laughed as he pointed out that the temperature gauge on the dash was maxed out, the needle far over the danger range, past 100 degrees and at the farthest edge it could be where there were not even numbers listed. I prayed silently because I just wanted to get home in one piece. We were cruising along for awhile until we hit another jam not far from his house. He nonchalantly turned on the air conditioning causing me to advise him against that considering his car was already straining itself. He agreed that might be a good idea but complained that he was hot. I suggested he open the windows and turn the car off since we were not moving at all and he complied. His nonchalance and unperturbedness in the face of danger were not new to me, but it still caused alarm. Thankfully we made it back to his house and I took a refreshing shower before heading to sleep.