Tuesday, June 4, 2013

India Journal: Jaipur to Delhi by Road & Notes on Delhi



C and I traveled to Delhi by car from Jaipur a few days ago, our first such trip by road since we first arrived in India. Travel by car allows us to see aspects of this country that we don’t see traveling by plane. The outskirts of Jaipur seem to go on endlessly with unnumbered people and shanties. The roads crowded with all manner of modes of transportation, from foot traffic to camels to motorbikes, cars, and large trucks. The trucks, decorated in wildly garish colors and always in need of bodywork, inevitably have a message to “please honk” written on the back, as if the national pastime of horn-honking needed encouragement. The countryside itself is almost perfectly flat, except of the spine of rocky hills that rim Jaipur. The earth is a pale brown that seems little more than dust, although somehow crops issue forth from it at the appropriate times. Here and there we see “colleges”, which, given their distance from the urban centers, must act almost as monasteries to keep their students far from the paths of temptation found in the cities. How they obtain water, sewer, and the like, I don’t know. We pass a number of “flyovers” designed to by-pass the villages between Jaipur and Delhi, and not a one completed, although a few were marked by some activity. Sometimes public projects in India seem all activity and no accomplishment.


After going through the small towns surrounding Delhi with their crowded roads lined with trucks, small vendors, animals, and people, one begins to see the high-rise glass towers that mark the growth of affluent Delhi. While in Jaipur we never see steel-frame construction, the height and design of these building suggests the use of steel and therefore provide a mark of affluence. One learns, however, that no matter the sparkle of the tower, at street level one is likely to encounter the shortcomings of Indian infrastructure and services, thus providing one more set of contradictions that mark contemporary India. 


As we enter into Delhi proper, we note the wide, tree-lined boulevards with orderly traffic. The orderliness and greenery contrast with the cities of Rajasthan and help provide Delhi with a welcoming feel. (Although a later walk educates us that the trees often serve as conduits for low-hanging electrical wires that force one to pay more attention to what is above than what is below as we walk). As with most phenomena in India, one needn’t travel far to find an antithesis to such greenery and order, but in this part of the city, it’s a plus. 


We’re lodging in the Hans, a concrete tower not far from other concrete towers and just a short way from the British-constructed shopping area of Connaught Place. Connaught Place seems like a perpetual construction project, and the shops, many of which are brand name and upscale, seem worn by it all. Dogs sleep in the heat of the day in the shadows of the archways as affluent, mostly younger Indians, peruse the shops, the dingy exteriors not deterring their desire to buy and mingle. Going out to find a place for lunch, I find the heat in Delhi stifling. Although the thermometer doesn't spike as high as it does in Jaipur, one feels a greater humidity and haze compared to the pure, bright blue sky of mid-day Jaipur (where haze appears at the beginning and end of the day but doesn’t linger). 


As evening settles in, I look out the window of our 17th floor room and view the haze and adjoining gray, concrete buildings. The gray of the concrete has an added patina of dust, soot, and bird droppings that washes all sense of color from the scene. A couple of the nearby buildings don’t have lights, as they appear to have been abandoned after arising 15 or more stories into the air. Mostly low building and a few skyscrapers and high smokestacks, as far as the haze permits us to see, mark the remainder of the city view. 


A walk the following day, in the late afternoon, exposed C and I to what we thought might be an incoming rainstorm. The wind picked up, visibility decreased, and the shadows disappeared; however, instead of rain and relief from the heat, we found the wind blew in dust and grit, filling our eyes and mouths (until we wised up) with a fine grit. No rain ever appeared, while the city, back in our room, nearly disappeared while the terrestrial junk blew through. 


Tomorrow we leave for Shilong in the eastern part of the country, up in the Himalayan foothills. As a local friend noted, most want to escape Delhi in June, and now I understand why.

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