Three Arrivals in Delhi

Delhi Red Fort

I bought a beard

In November of 2009 I arrived in New Delhi, India for the first time.  I was a tourist then and I arrived at Delhi's old airport.  I remember the heavy, bureaucratic building with out-of-fashion painted concrete concrete and worn floors.  I remember the weight of the air on exiting the airport, and the rush of touts soliciting rides.  I remember climbing into an auto-rickshaw and making way for the city-centre.  I was with my Singaporean friend and roommate.  We had the afternoon to spend in Delhi before taking an overnight bus to Dharamsala.  The afternoon light was golden as we rattled on the roads in our three wheeled chariot.  The city was a grey-green and dusty yellow brown.  Green nature was there in the form of trees, but a heavy dust diluted the hue.  Concrete -- browned and broken and cracked -- stretched and piled in all directions of the drive.  I was in India, and I looked around me in silent, reflective wonder.  ... That day, we visited Delhi's Red Fort.  I bought a beard.  We arrived at the most run-down and decrepit bus station I had every seen.  I remember joking that it really looked like it was abandoned... if not for all of the people and buses coming in and out.  We ate a simple dhaba meal in the station before boarding the bus.
...

At one of the Lodhi Tombs

In March of 2013 I arrived in New Delhi for a one-week business trip.  I was met in the New airport by a driver from the India Habitat Centre.  He was waiting there with my name written on a folded and torn piece of paper.  A young kid who said nothing to me during the long walk to his car.  The air outside was fresh and cool... being springtime in Delhi -- it was a pleasant change from tropical Singapore air.  I was in Delhi on business, and the driver took me directly to the guesthouse where I would be staying.  He softened up to my questions in the car, and we had a nice chat about his home village and his work in India.  We drove through Delhi's expanding but chaotic infrastructure.  The roads gradually gave way to flyovers and tree-lined boulevards.  I was apprehensive about my new role with a new project, but I felt some comfort in having been to Delhi before.  It looked much the same as I recalled.  But I saw it bigger now, and stretching out in all directions.  We arrived to the guesthouse in Delhi's Defense Colony.  Four story concrete buildings filed along paved streets punctuated by excavations and mounds of debris.  This is one of Delhi's nicer neighborhoods, but there is still such chaos on the street.  I met the caretaker of the guesthouse and unpacked my bags.  I drank a cup of tea and then went for lunch at the Defense Colony market -- south Indian lunch platter.  I idled around, bought a map, and then returned to do some work before starting the week of meetings.

...

India Habitat Centre

In late July of 2013 -- yesterday -- I arrived in New Delhi for the third time.  And this time I'd become a resident of the place.  I again arrived at the new airport.  This time it was quite familiar.  The escalator down to the immigration queues is flanked by giant sculptures of elegant hands holding lotus flowers and making graceful gestures of greeting.  A long queue awaited me, and was commandeered by an unforgiving surly immigration agent.  With absolute apathy in his face he barked short orders to me.  I complied and was soon collecting my baggage from conveyor #8.  Almost half of my worldly possessions circled on these belts; the other half were on a boat somewhere en route to India.  

My room for the next three weeks.

I again exited the airport terminal and found a young kid waiting for me and holding a sign with my name on it.  He also did not speak to me until we were well in the car and I opened a conversation with a query about the distance to my hotel at the India Habitat Centre (the answer to which I already knew).  Soon the young man was opening up.  And I was shocked with the harsh reality that many poor Indians face in this country. The driver told me of a list of woes in his life, and he very bluntly told me about his three attempts at suicide.  It seems crass to mention it here, but he first tried hanging himself, but was discovered and saved by his brother.  He next doused himself with five liters of gasoline and was about to set himself aflame, but his wife intervened.  And he recently tried jumping in front of a car.  He spoke so casually about these, but then began weeping when talking about his brother in hospital, the death of his parents, the poor health of his daughter, and the insurance money he could provide for them if he were no longer alive.  I could only listen and provide some feeble, re-assuring truisms.  Let me tell you now that I feel like a cynical man, but I don't know if the stories he told me were true.  But I gave him a generous tip when he dropped me off and I went about the rest of my life, while he went about the rest of his.  ... 

Ganesha's Menu

I checked into my hotel room and unpacked half of my baggage.  Enough to change clothes and discover my books.  I then strolled the neighborhood in search of lunch and a mobile phone SIM card.  Both of which I succeed in finding about 100 meters from the hotel compound.  I made a quick friend at the mobile phone shop.  He was surprised that I wanted the ability to call overseas to Singapore.  I appreciated his many head-waggles during our conversation -- this, a very custom and delightful (although initially confusing to me) of Indian body language.  

Ganesha's Paneer

... Lunch was a heavy paneer dish at Ganesha's restaurant.  It was surprisingly bland.  After lunch, and after a sufficient wait of 25+ minutes, I went for a swim in the hotel swimming pool.  Then returned to my room to shower, rest, and dress for a classical Indian music concert I intended to attend that evening.  This was a very different arrival to India from before.  I was moving to this new city and this new country. And it seemed so normal and so simple to me.  Maybe I am getting used to living in different parts of the world. Or maybe the world is getting smaller.  But I am in a new place... a place I have been before... and I am getting comfortable here already.

Classical music concert