Our First Real Day in Delhi

Ok, this post is not for the faint of heart -- October 2nd was a big day for us....but by the end of it we felt we had been baptized by India.


First, a letter from Jen:

We've arrived! It's Monday morning here, and Mark has taken Tenzin, Maggie & Karma to a morning celebration about Gandhi's birthday (today, October 2nd). Kobi is sleeping and I'm taking advantage of the in-room WIFI to make this post.

We're still figuring out how to manage these posts, but I wanted to at least say that we are here, and it's amazing.


Outside my window there is some kind of crazy bird I've never heard before...or should I say birds...flying round the courtyard in a shrieking chorus. Our rooms are beautiful and this place seems to be filled with a very interesting mix of people.

And now, an update on the day:

Here are some photos from their visit to Rajghat:


Mark and Karma join in touching the flowers that cover the site of Ghandi's cremation. The leaders from around the country have just completed their speeches in an interdenominational service.


SEVEN SOCIAL SINS
as described by Ghandi

And now we come to India Lesson #1, after not even 24 hours in the country: Let go of your attachment to material things -- just go with the flow -- as the following incident will explain.

When Mark and the kids left the ceremony to pick up their shoes at the entrance, they found that only Mark's shoes were left. The kids' colorful Merrills, purchased just before we left, were gone. But instead of getting upset, they just got in the car and went and bought new shoes at a roadside market (and outfitting three kids cost less than $10). Or perhaps the lesson here is that in India, it pays to have big feet, because no one will want your shoes, since Mark's size 12 sandals went untouched.

For lunch, we met with the sister and brother-in-law of Mark's Health Center colleague from CT, Arvind. Kabir and Kamini joined us for lunch on the top floor of the Habitat Centre at a restaurant called Delhi O'Delhi. Over a fabulous lunch of various curries, dal, rice, nan, and some western foods, we get to know each other, finding lots in common...an interest in education and community and the wide world. The kids and Kabir and Kamini have a lively discussion about their mutual interests of Shakespeare and history, and we get lots of wonderful advice about how to orient ourselves in Delhi.

Later in the afternoon we all went to Rajpath, which is the area of the British colonial government -- wide boulevard with official buildings and monuments. It was packed with Indian families out for picnics and walks, and with "touts", the sellers of various items who follow you and pester you to buy whatever food, toy, clothing, or jewelry they are selling. Within just a few minutes and a few hundred yards, we were followed by men selling flutes, toy helicopter spinners, postcards, carved souvenirs, henna, and at least a half-dozen different kinds of snacks. We also encountered a man who had a traveling cart where you could pay a rupee to look inside at an old-fashioned flip movie or zoetrope of a bollywood dance, and a man with two monkeys who would make them perform if you paid him. The main path was blocked by soldiers so we took a detour with our crowd of followers over a narrow bridge (no railing!) that crossed a stagnant pond of questionable origin.

Tenzin had the strongest reaction to these touts, on the one hand responding with friendliness and compassion and wanting to buy from everyone, and on the other hand, being very impressed with their operation -- how did they know to drop the asking price for those helicopter spinners as we walked? They could tell that Kobi really did want one, and they started at over 100 rupees, but as we walked, and managed to dismiss each seller, we'd go to a different part of the park we'd be approached by a new tout, asking just 10 or 20 rupees less for the same toy. Were they on cell phones? Was it hand signals? Were they all working for the same guy and had a price they should offer in their zone? Hmmm....



Improbably, all the touts cleared away when Mark went to take our picture at India Gate. It looks here like we had the place to ourselves!

So we found our way back to the car, but not before we learned Indian Lesson #2: We are superstars, partly because of our white skin and nationality, and partly because we have so many children in the family! People insisted that we pose (especially the girls) in their family photos. Here's an example:


Throughout India, people ask Maggie and Karma to be in their photos, but especially at tourist attractions like India Gate in New Delhi.

At the other end of Rajpath, we found something that made Kobi feel better about not getting a helicopter spinner.... a real live cannon.

Okay, so you can't really tell, but that's a cannon behind the boys.


Not that it hadn't already been a full day, but when we found out that there were evening celebrations for the holiday of Dusshera, we got back in the car and went to find out what it was about.

Dusshera, which has lots of different English spellings (like most things in India), celebrates the destruction of the demon Ravanna by Rama who is the hero of the epic "The Ramayana". Briefly, Rama is a human incarnation of the god Vishnu, and the epic tells the story of how he and his wife Sita, and his brother were exiled from their kingdom, where Rama was the rightful ruler. After lots of adventures, and battling the demon Ravanna who kidnapped Sita, Rama is finally returned to his home. This story is incredibly important in India...there are several holidays related to the events in the story -- Rama's final return home to find the city filled with lights is celebrated as the biggest holiday of the year in India, called Diwali...which is on October 21.

The heart of the Dusshera celebration is the nighttime burning of giant effigies representing the demon Ravanna and his two brothers, paving the way for Rama to eventually return home. We had seen the construction of the effigies, giant painted paper statues about 3 stories tall, but didn't understand what they were for. Pridpal took us to a stadium where thousands -- no, tens of thousands of people were gathering. We stood together as the sun went down and the celebrations began. Here's a photo of the effigies before the sun went down:



Ravanna, the demon king of Sri Lanka, and his brothers, about to be burned for Dusshera.

Now, the event did not exactly go as planned. A round of preliminary fireworks went awry and headed for the crowd, which did an amazingly fast retreat. While we waited for the burning of the effigies, we nervously watched the preparations to set off more fireworks near the crowd. See photo here:


The preparations for setting of really big fireworks were a little....uh....low-tech. Note the fire-fighting system (a water cooler jug!).

The evening came to a rather abrupt but spectactularly-lit end as another round of fireworks misfired into the crowd and the authorities (thank god) called an end to that portion of the program and said they would just go ahead and light the effigies, to prevent further injuries. Then with a few quick explosions the giant images were alight, and everyone made a stampede for the road. In moments the field was empty except for the smoldering ash. We huddled together under a tree waiting for the traffic to disperse, which took a lot less time than it does at the Middletown fireworks for the 4th of July.

Finally, we went back to the Habitat center for the night -- it was just an unbelievable day and we're grateful to be here, still safe and sound.