Monday, July 29, 2013

A distinct advantage


 Our second week in Delhi, much like the first, was packed with so much sightseeing and exploring that it was a relief to hit the sack every night. I haven't slept so well in a while. It's far too much to tell you about in individual blog posts, and to be honest, I think that would bore you.

Hence, I take you on a whirlwind tour of the rest of Delhi. Consider this a distinct advantage: you get to see all the historical wonders of this ancient city without sweating nearly as much as I did! Or taking two to three hour bus rides!

We begin with Humayun's Tomb, the resting place of a Mughal emperor and the inspiration for the Taj Mahal!


Raj Ghat, site of Mahatma Gandhi's cremation! This was my personal favorite place. An extensive museum traced every aspect of the wizened, saintlike hero's life, and afterward we stood in front of his funeral pyre.


A light breeze was blowing, and we all turned to face it, feeling uplifted. Granted, part of this was due to how hot we all were, but it also seemed fitting with the nature of the place, especially if you closed your eyes.

Qutb Minar, mispronounced and misspelled by me as "QuTUB Minar" on various postcards I sent! This is the whereabouts of centuries-old Hindu-Muslim ruins, hotly contested in ancient times and topped off with a massive tower:


It's also a great place to take goofy pictures with your new friends when you're tired of seeing historical monuments!

The pictures that are actually good are not taken by me, but by my lovely new friend,
the talented Rukmini Choudhury.

Once again, photo credit to Rukmini Choudhury.

And while you're there, you can certainly find six lovable new friends and decide to adopt them:



Feel free to name them Mahatma, Jena, and Nehru after India's first freedom fighters. Don't worry; when the customs officials see how cute they are, their hearts will melt.

The National Parliament, seat of the Indian government! A place of many religions, cultures, and dialects (India has 22 official languages, so interpreters are always needed) united under one national heart. After a tour of the Rajya (upper house) and Lok (lower house) (the Indian Parliament functions much like America's Congress), we attended a private talk with no less than the joint secretary of the houses. "I could get used to this," our SRCC friend Charles whispered as white-gloved waiters served us tea and cake in the Parliament press room.


The Presidential palace! India's president is mainly a figurehead, but he's still a well-respected man (the Kinks, anyone?) here. We toured the state banquet halls and receiving rooms and begged to see the famous palace gardens. Officials hustled us through a series of metal detectors and pat-downs, even though we'd already been searched extensively to enter the palace grounds. We were led up a set of stairs to a magnificent arboretum and topiary--"See, there's the garden"--and then marched back to the bus 30 seconds later. To this day I have no clue what happened. I've given up trying to understand some of the finer points of this country.

Us, not in the garden.
Iskcon, a Hare Krishna temple! We arrived just in time to participate in an evening worship. Lots of chanting-singing, clapping in time, the presentation of sweets and flowers to the gods, and crowding the front of the temple to catch a glimpse of the ornately-dressed statues. It was a singular experience, one of the most unique I've had here, and one I'm not likely to forget.


A nighttime light show at the Old Fort! This was our only evening activity in Delhi, as it's unsafe to go out alone at night, and we needed the SRCC guys with us. (Mom, I can hear you now. This was in a protected park; I was perfectly safe.) The show cleverly used the front of the Old Fort as a backdrop to showcase the history of Delhi, a "city of cities" finally united.

As you can likely tell, this was taken by me, not Rukmini Choudhury.
A really cool concept, artfully executed, except for a few things. First, there have been a lot of murders in the history of Delhi's kings. Whoever designed the light show decided to punctuate each of these murders with a bloodcurdling scream and an accompanying squelch of blood across the "screen." Multiply that scream and splatter by about 20 murders spanning several confusing centuries of Delhi history (in which servants killed kings and kings killed servants for the throne) and you have a lot of giggling among the audience.

Add to that a random dance sequence in the middle of the show, complete with whirling dervishes that turn into women and a singer that moans two notes for five minutes straight while swaying in place, and you have an audience who will mock the show the entire way home on the bus. Charles nearly toppled his plastic chair from laughing, which in turn caused me to go into hysterics as stray dogs roamed between our rows of chairs. (Mom: I did not catch rabies. I am fine.) If you're ever tempted to use drugs, just come to the Old Fort light show in Delhi for the exact same experience, sans side effects and risk of death.

Finally, the Lotus Temple! A fairly modern Baha'i temple, but nevertheless an architectural beauty.


There were no shoes allowed in the temple, no pictures, and no talking. For once, we were absolved for not making conversation, for being antisocial. We all filled in our own separate rows. Some people prayed, some people wandered around, examining the building's intricacies. I sat alone, eyes closed, and savored the sound of silence for the first time in two weeks. No horns, no English, no Hindi, no wallahs or rickshaw drivers or peacock calls. Just the Lotus Temple, and inside it me, and outside the rest of Delhi and India.

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