Nizamuddin Dargah

I'd been wanting to go to Nizamuddin Dargah for a long time--ever since I read about the place in City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple (required reading for any traveler to the city). Basically, Nizamuddin Dargah is the hidden shrine of a great Sufi mystic (none other than Mr. Nizamuddin himself) who lived at the turn of the 14th century. According to those in the know (er, William Dalrymple) Nizamuddin was really a swell guy--not one of these I'm-Just-In-It-For-The-Money-And-Hot-Chicks kind of guru--but a true believe in equality, faith, humility, charity and kindness. He took on disciples regardless of social, economic or even religious status and was just all about helping the needy and downtrodden. (Nizamuddin and Mother Theresa probably would have gotten on famously.)

[The faithful, at the golden shrine]

 

 

Anyway, given the aforesaid awesomeness of Nizamuddin, his shrine has become a site of pilgrimage and prayer for Sufis around the world. His shrine of hidden on the back streets of the eponymous neighborhood of Delhi and the alleyways are so narrow that you can't just cruise up in a rickshaw but have to sort of meander around the area until you stumble upon lines of flower-sellers (to be given as offerings at the shrine) and crusty old men yelling at you to take off your shoes, to be deposited and safeguarded by them (for a small fee). As near other shrines, temples and religious place where presumably folks are feeling pious, the streets to Nizamuddin's shrine are sadly lined with crippled, elderly, young and pregnant beggars.

 [The floral offerings are for sale everywhere]

[The alleyways to the shrine are lined with folks selling religious offerings, texts, etc.]

[There is lots of poverty around the shrine. Poor little guy]
 

Of course, you can also just follow the music. The loveliest thing about this lovely shrine is that every Thursday night devotees (and some very intrepid tourists) gather to play and sing qawwalis, Sufi devotional music. Each qawwali lasts for about 10-15 minutes and are so haunting that an otherwise non-believer (such as myself) can find herself swept away by the entrancing harmonies. These songs don't seem to have lyrics, but rather a single phrase (probably something like "God is great") repeated over and over again in varying undulating voices. It's beautiful, mesmerizing and almost trance-like--especially when performed in front of a resplendent shrine for swaying masses of the faithful.

 [The qawwali musicians play and sing in front of a crowd]

[This is the best photo I have of the scene--that's me in the pink to the right]

I actually liked listening to the qawwali at the shrine so much that I brought my family there when they visited last week. I think nobody enjoyed having to take off their shoes and walk on the icy marble temple in 40 degree weather, but if you ask them (and please do!) I suspect they'll tell you it was a pretty magical moment--cold feet be damned.
 

Has India turned me into a hippie?

Evidence for Kate now being a hippie:

·         I do yoga by myself in my room about 3 times a week. This is because it is cheaper, more convenient and doesn’t require my putting on pants.

·         I have started making my own muesli to eat for breakfast every morning. This requires me to bake oats. Yes, I am now baking oats weekly.

·         The amount of long skirts in my wardrobe has increased by about 700% in the last 10 months.

·         I basically eat like a vegetarian.

·         Sometimes I meditate.

·         The natural tendency of my hair is towards dreadlocks.

·         The frigidity of my bathroom means that showers are getting shorter in duration and longer in non-showering intervals. (This does not help the aforementioned hair’s tendency towards dreadlocks).

 

Evidence for Kate not being a hippie:

·         I spend 9 hours in an office every day.

·         I wear shoes.

You be the judge.

Nothing says "Badass" like pollution-wear

This is how I look now when cruising around Delhi in an autorickshaw.

Yes, I've taken to wearing my exercise pollution mask even when not working out because the pollution here is so, unbelievably bad that sometimes it feels like I've stepped into some weird post-apocalyptic world where the city is constantly shrouded in mist (read, smog) and dotted by the small fires of the pavement dwellers.


Still, I get harassed a lot less when I'm wearing this thing, so I guess there is some silver lining.

The Search for Street Meat

Delhi street food is a curious beast. The city contains some of the greatest variety and most delicious cheap eats known to man and womankind, but the intrepid eater is constantly plagued by the threat of Delhi Belly. A curious and complicated list of rules for safely eating Delhi street food has therefore emerged: Don’t eat street food in summer when the temperature soars. Don’t eat street food too late in the afternoon/evening when it was presumably been sitting out all day, unless you can watch the food being prepared directly in front of you. Don’t eat anything with liquid in it. Don’t eat street meat.

Now, that last prohibition had been annoying me because I love street meats and I therefore determined to tempt fate and find and eat buckets of the most delicious street meat I could find. (I must say, I’ve come to approach street food with a somewhat reckless attitude now, having spending 10 months in Delhi without once being felled by the notorious Delhi Belly. This is probably a result of a stomach well-tempered by eating the best street foods that Beijing and Mexico City had to offer.  And, likely a childhood misspent by sucking on various items found on the mean streets of NYC helped build up my immune system too.)



So, last week I decided to combine my trip to a Sufi shrine (more on that later) with a search for Delhi’s finest street meats. Considering that I was venturing into a Islamic part of the city, I thought it much more likely that competition for street meat would be more robust and delicious—unlike Hindus, Muslims aren’t usually vegetarians. I even did some online research before hitting the streets and learned that there was one particular street in the neighborhood which was renowned for its casual eateries. In particular, all of the online commentators seemed to drool over this place called Ghalib’s. 

 [The hunt for street meat is on! I started here, with a long like of eateries featuring big pots containing delicious smelling things]

 [As you can see, I'm very happy here. The only thing I enjoy more than hunting for cheap eats is eating cheaply (and deliciously)]

[There was a strip of yummy looking places with a bench or two to sit on. But I knew I wasn't stopping until I found Ghalib's]

[I was almost seduced into eating at this place, which smelled like delicious roast chicken. Next time.]

So, off I went and after many wrong turns down dark and dirty alleyways, I finally found Ghalib’s. Now, as you can see, this place is not much too look at. Basically, we’re talking about two guys with a grill and a big clay biryani pot on the outside of a small three-sided room (the fourth side was open to the alleyway) where maybe 10 people could sit comfortably. There was also a fridge with a few beers and cokes were chilling and a printed menu on the wall. No one spoke English of course, but I basically just pointed at what I wanted. 

 [The outside of Ghalib's. Not much to look at, really]

 [Voila! The man behind all of the Ghalib's magic. Could this be Mr. Ghalib himself? As you can see from the line of customers, Mr. Ghalib's culinary skills are much in demand.]

The result? Tender, spicy, dripping-with-fat fresh-off-the-grill melt-in-your mouth succulent bites of meat. (Buffalo meat, I think). Also, not pictured here (sorry) cigar shaped rolls of deliciously spiced goat meat. And, of course, chicken biryani, well-spiced with nutmeg, pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, garlic and who knows whatever else. 

The one real setback with this place was that it did not serve any raita (a yogurt based dish common in India) to offset the spice of the food. But, I’m definitely going back soon, and bringing my own yogurt. Now that I’ve discovered the pleasures that Delhi street meat has to offer, wild horses couldn’t keep me away.

And while we're on the subject of Haves and Have Nots...

Considering my post from yesterday, I think it is very easy (and lazy) to view the Have and Have Not situation in Delhi in Dickensian terms--i.e., there are stingy and greedy Ebenezer Scrooge's and poor, selfless Tiny Tims. Truth be told, I'm sure there are folks running around here that are straight up caricatures of folks like that but the reality on the ground is that the interaction between the Haves and the Have Nots is much more nuanced. In my experience this relationship is complicated on both sides by feelings of distrust, resentment and suspicion which have a way of hardening into ugly behavior.

 

I am certainly a Have and live my life almost entirely interacting with the Haves. Here are some situations that, for me, exemplify the difficulty in acting as beneficently and generously as Haves might like to:

 

Last weekend I went to visit a monument in Delhi which was about a 15 minute walk from the nearest metro station. In an ideal world, upon exiting the metro station I would have walked to the nearest rickshaw bicyclist, gotten into his vehicle, and enjoyed a smooth and quick ride to the site, enriching the poor cyclist with well-earned wages and saving myself the hassle of trying to find the way and being jostled in a crowded, dirty, polluted walk for 15 minutes. Yes, I would have really like to have taken the bicyclist and it should have been a win-win situation for all. But instead, as I exited the metro station I was bumrushed by about 7 cyclist all yelling at me and trying to hustle me into their seat. I felt overwhelmed and when the cyclists wouldn't leave me alone even after I indicated that I wasn't interested, a little threatened. They were quoting my prices I knew were absurd for the ride and so I felt angry at the idea they were trying to take advantage of what they assumed to be my ignorance because I'm obviously foreign. Plus, I didn't trust that they would take me straight to the site instead of taking me first to their cousin's store (which happens sometimes when you're a white person in a tourist area.) So, instead of taking and happily paying for a service that I wanted and that many folks wanted to give me, I chose the crowded and uncomfortable walk.
 

Our security guard asked my roommate for some money to buy a heater. She refused. She told me, "Two years ago I gave the then security guard a Rs 2000 for a heater, which is too much but I wanted to make sure he definitely had enough. I never saw the heater and I never saw the money again. So, this year I'll just buy the heater myself." Except, of course, my roommate is very busy and buying a heater can be a confusing thing in Delhi. After a few more cold days and nights without a heater she finally just gave the security guard Rs 1000, and emphasized that she needed to see the heater once he bought it.
 

Every morning at a particular traffic light on my way to work young children (none older than 11, I reckon) ask me for money. Many are carrying sleeping infants or have ugly injuries. They're almost always barefoot--even walking on the major streets in this frigid weather. It is so, so sad, but I never give children money because I'm suspicious they're being used as begging tools on behalf of unscrupulous adults, because I've heard that the sleeping infants are usually (and dangerously) drugged to stay asleep during the begging hours and I don't want to encourage that, because if the situation were really that desperate I wonder that they don't also ask the auto drivers also (instead of just the customers), and because of a hundred different reasons as well.  I also don't engage with the children other than a perfunctory head shaking initially because I've learned that if you smile at them, make extended eye contact or speak kindly to them the children won't leave but continue bowing to your feet or showing off their infants/injuries with increasing pathos.
 

So, the relationship between the Haves and the Have Nots is much more complicated than Dickens might have you believe. (Query, Mr. Dickens, whether the real solution to industrial England's evils is Scrooge changing his heart versus having the government implement effective welfare programs?) On the other hand, I do believe that there is far too little empathy in India for the plight of the Have Nots which expresses itself in a lack of respect for the inherent dignity of people. But what I'm trying to say is that while I can imagine the righteous anger and disgust that might be felt by a rickshaw cyclist  when watching a well-monied tourist walk away rather than spend 50 cents on a ride, or by a security guard sleeping outside when refused money for a heater by the person whose cozy house he guards, or by a begging child when blatantly ignored by a wealthy commuter, these acts do not necessarily stem from a lack of compassion but rather from the realities of the complicated and distrustful relationship existing between Haves and Have Nots.

 

Of course, I do believe that it is incumbent on the Haves to reach through this troubled relationship with generosity, compassion and empathy...but it's really not as simple as waking up one morning having shed one's "Bah humbug!" attitude. Personally, being smart, staying safe and hassle-free and extending generosity are three balls I still am learning to juggle.

Parties, death, servants and thoughts on A Christmas Carol.

Last Saturday night, at 2am, I was really pissed off. Despite the frigid weather, my next-door neighbors (the ones in the enormous house with the surrounding wall too high to see over) were having a very big, very loud outdoor party around a fire-pit. They were blasting disco music, Bollywood hits, and 80s pop-songs and all sorts of synthesized music that a tired soul like myself has no desire to hear at bedtime. (And to add insult to injury, the partygoers were apparently passing around a mike so they could sing along in loud, drunken and very off-key melodies).

 

My room is at the front of my apartment, with nothing but a wall of windows to mute the cacophony. It was, in fact so loud that to talk to another person in my room I would have had to raise my voice. I considered getting dressed, marching over to my neighbors, persuading the security guard to let me in, and giving the owners a piece of my mind. But, as I've said, it was very cold outside and the idea of getting dressed to deal with the hassle was particularly unpalatable. So, instead I dragged my blankets to my roommate's room at the back of the house (she was gone on holiday) and eventually--with the help of both earplugs and my noise cancelling headphones--managed to get to sleep.

 

When I woke up in the morning there were emergency vehicles and reports outside of my neighbor's house. Three people had died there in the night, with a fourth in critical condition.

 

Who died? Well, as per usual, bad stuff always happens to the most vulnerable of a household and in this case it was four household servants who apparently, having drunk their fill, went to bed in the wee hours of the morning in a poorly ventilated room with no windows. To stave off the cold they used a coal heater and were slowly asphyxiated by carbon monoxide poisoning during the night. (The fourth man sleeping in the room was found still breathing, and rushed to the emergency room where he remains in intensive care).  

 

The somewhat sensationalist article I read about the tragedy mentioned several times that the servants had been drinking alcohol--and perhaps that fact is relevant in that the men may have not been as sensitive to the danger as they usually would have been. To me, however, the real villain here is the living situation endured by servants--when you have 4 men sleeping in a small room with no windows on a cold night is it any surprise that when something goes wrong it goes really, really wrong?
 

Many servants in India have a really hard life, working 24/7/365 in poor conditions for minimal earnings. (We all remember the case of the domestic servant who accused her employer--an Indian diplomat to the USA--of trafficking, right? In my opinion the US responded appropriately by taking the servant's complaint seriously, but many Indians were totally appalled by the USA's lack of respect for their diplomat, never mind the trafficking complaint by the servant)

 

Another story--my friend lives in a building with one all-day, all-night security guard who sleeps outdoors on a cot by the gate. She noticed lately that he was always wrapped in a blanket and shivering and so offered to give him one of her extra electric heaters to keep by his cot. (Though, how much good that really can do for a person sleeping outdoors I do not know). In any case, the guard refused her offer, telling my friend that the landlady doesn't allow him to plug-in a heater since it uses too much electricity and runs up her bill. According to my friend, this landlady also constantly curses at and insults the poor man in the foulest language imaginable.  For the record, this servant earns about Rs. 15,000 (US $240 a month) and works 24 hours a day with no holidays. He apparently also has 5 kids. (I have no idea how, if he works all the time, he's had time to even father 5 children--I'm chalking this up to one of the mysteries of the world that I do not understand).

 

I watched the Christmas Carol last night and was again struck by how similar the divide between haves and have-nots are in Dickensian England and current day India. (In fact, at one point I had to turn the movie off since it was striking a little too close to home.) I see reflections of those little emaciated figures of Want and Ignorance cowering beneath the robes of the Spirit of Christmas Present all over this city. (And certainly, thinking about these things puts my own grumpiness at  the fact I needed to drag my bedding to another room due to the loud party outside into perspective.)

Random scenes from Delhi

Just a few snapshots from my rambles over the past few weeks....

[The fish market]

[View from a friend's balcony]

[Corner shop]

[Sleeping puppy, sheltered by motorbike]

[Goat having a moment with a motorbike]

 [I have no idea what this is--I just randomly walked by it one day!]