Today I took my first ever bus ride in Delhi. I was heading up to Connaught Place to attend a language exchange meetup in the late afternoon. As a man committed to public transportation, I was eager to try using the city bus system in Delhi. I was fortunate to have my first experience on a Sunday afternoon... as the traffic was quite light and there were not too many people on the bus I rode.
I had a late lunch at the market near the India Habitat Centre (IHC), where I am currently staying. And I should point out that "markets" have a funny meaning here in Delhi. It can be a single stretch of road, or a cluster of criss-cross streets that have a lot of small shops and eating establishments. It is one of these commercial streets that runs south of the IHC where I had lunch today -- at a restaurant called Ganesha's. After lunch, I strolled around a park for a few minutes, before catching the #522 bus that runs north from Lodhi Colony (near IHC) and up all the way to Connaught Place and beyond. My meeting was to be at 5:30 pm at the Dunkin Donuts (!) at Connaught Place.
I climbed the bus and asked the driver how to pay. He gestured to me to the rear of the bus, where another man served as the on-board ticket agent. I asked the fare and bought a ticket for 10 rupees. And I sat behind the ticket man, where I took this photo.
The bus ride was very smooth. At 4:00pm it only took 20 minutes to reach Connaught Place. The wide streets in central Delhi were mostly empty, and I was very surprised to have such a pleasant ride. There was no air-conditioning, but the windows to the bus were open, and it was not so hot.
I alighted the bus (this is a word that carries over from my days in Singapore... we never say 'alighted' in the USA!) at the Palika Bazaar at the outer of ring of the Connaught Place circle (or circus). Palika Bazaar is an open park in the center of the city that has some kind of market and shopping center underground. I have never been underneath... only to the park land above.
The park is generally filled with people and touts. I had arrived early, and so spent some time loitering around the park. Three separate guys offered to clean my ears using a traditional Indian cleaning technique. I assured them that next time, I would use their services; but that today I was in no need for an ear cleaning. They each found it fit to point out that their ear cleaning came with a 5-year guarantee!! I laughed each time they said this, and asked if I came back in four years with dirty years, would they would clean again at no charge. None of them directly answered that question.
After fending off the ear-cleaning troupe, I was unfortunately victim to a shoe-shining scam as I attempted to exit the park. A man approached me and called to ask if I wanted to have my shoes shined. I was wearing sneakers, and was about to tell him 'no thanks' when he rapidly pointed to my right foot and indicated a fresh, wet, and foul smelling glob of mud (or worse) that had mysteriously appeared on the TOP of my shoe! I was very surprised and immediately disgusted. My shoe was dreadfully soiled... but fortunately (ahem...) there was a shoe shine man directly in front of me. He very generously agreed to help me clean the material off of my shoe. And I saw fit to pay him for his services. I cannot be certain, but I am fairly sure that he flung the mud onto my shoe when he pointed at my foot. Alas!
...
I still had a few minutes before the meeting started and so I wandered over to one of the market streets just south of the Palika Bazaar. I was delighted to find a small book stall selling some children's books in Hindi! This is something I'd been keeping an eye out for since I arrived in Delhi last week. I am studying Hindi now, and thought it a good idea to find some simple storybooks that I could test my reading and alphabet knowledge. I was doubly delighted to find some Tin Tin books written in Hindi!! I love Tin Tin, and have copies of the same stories in both French and English from earlier adventures and purchases. See the photo of Tin Tin and the seven crystal balls! I look forward to reading this story again... this time in Hindi!!
...
The language meetup was pretty good too. This was the first instance of the group, and so the discussion today was about planning the the course of the group in the future. There were only three of us in attendance, but we made a good plan for going forward. The organizer is a young guy from Delhi who works as a computer engineer, and who a few years ago spent 2 months working in Singapore. He'd like to learn French. The other attendee was an older gentleman who is also keen to practice speaking in French. He also speaks fluently in Japanese, and in fact works as a Japanese translator here Delhi. He was born in Delhi but lived for decades in Japan. Our plan is to meet every two weeks, focus on exchanging French for Hindi, and possibly recruiting some other language learners to join us. I am personally keen to find some people who want to speak Chinese... so I can keep up my skills in that language as well.
After the meeting, the older gentleman (Mr. Bishan Sharma) offered to give me a ride home in his car, as his place is further south than the IHC, and he'd be passing by my hotel anyway. He has studied French for a number of years, and so our entire conversation on the drive home was in French. We got along quite well and were enjoying the conversation so much, that we decided to share a cup of tea at the IHC restaurant (Eatopia) and chat for a little while longer. It was great, but for me it was also really, really weird to be speaking French in India. Mostly because, for the last two or more years, I've been studying Chinese fairly intensely. It took 20 minutes and many jumbled sentences to have the French come out right. I kept starting a sentence, and then switching to Mandarin mid-sentence. But after a while, it became more fluid, and we had a great conversation about Delhi, about the environment and climate change (my work), about Japan, about sports in India, and about the large differences in tea culture between Japan (non-sweet, green tea) and India (heavily sugared, black tea). It was really fun, and a nice close to a pretty good weekend here in New Delhi.
 |
| On the #522 northbound bus. |
I climbed the bus and asked the driver how to pay. He gestured to me to the rear of the bus, where another man served as the on-board ticket agent. I asked the fare and bought a ticket for 10 rupees. And I sat behind the ticket man, where I took this photo.
The bus ride was very smooth. At 4:00pm it only took 20 minutes to reach Connaught Place. The wide streets in central Delhi were mostly empty, and I was very surprised to have such a pleasant ride. There was no air-conditioning, but the windows to the bus were open, and it was not so hot.
I alighted the bus (this is a word that carries over from my days in Singapore... we never say 'alighted' in the USA!) at the Palika Bazaar at the outer of ring of the Connaught Place circle (or circus). Palika Bazaar is an open park in the center of the city that has some kind of market and shopping center underground. I have never been underneath... only to the park land above.
The park is generally filled with people and touts. I had arrived early, and so spent some time loitering around the park. Three separate guys offered to clean my ears using a traditional Indian cleaning technique. I assured them that next time, I would use their services; but that today I was in no need for an ear cleaning. They each found it fit to point out that their ear cleaning came with a 5-year guarantee!! I laughed each time they said this, and asked if I came back in four years with dirty years, would they would clean again at no charge. None of them directly answered that question.
After fending off the ear-cleaning troupe, I was unfortunately victim to a shoe-shining scam as I attempted to exit the park. A man approached me and called to ask if I wanted to have my shoes shined. I was wearing sneakers, and was about to tell him 'no thanks' when he rapidly pointed to my right foot and indicated a fresh, wet, and foul smelling glob of mud (or worse) that had mysteriously appeared on the TOP of my shoe! I was very surprised and immediately disgusted. My shoe was dreadfully soiled... but fortunately (ahem...) there was a shoe shine man directly in front of me. He very generously agreed to help me clean the material off of my shoe. And I saw fit to pay him for his services. I cannot be certain, but I am fairly sure that he flung the mud onto my shoe when he pointed at my foot. Alas!
...
 |
| Tin Tin in Hindi. |
...
The language meetup was pretty good too. This was the first instance of the group, and so the discussion today was about planning the the course of the group in the future. There were only three of us in attendance, but we made a good plan for going forward. The organizer is a young guy from Delhi who works as a computer engineer, and who a few years ago spent 2 months working in Singapore. He'd like to learn French. The other attendee was an older gentleman who is also keen to practice speaking in French. He also speaks fluently in Japanese, and in fact works as a Japanese translator here Delhi. He was born in Delhi but lived for decades in Japan. Our plan is to meet every two weeks, focus on exchanging French for Hindi, and possibly recruiting some other language learners to join us. I am personally keen to find some people who want to speak Chinese... so I can keep up my skills in that language as well.
 |
| My bus route today. |
 |
| Panoramic view of Palika Bazaar (park). |
5-year guarantee of ear cleaning! That sounds like something worth trying! Bus rides are cheap and nice in India, especially for men though.
ReplyDeleteI find children's books and illustration books very good in India. See if you like this book: The Night Life of Trees. I love it very much. http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/09/20/the-night-life-of-trees-tara-books/
I just checked out the Night Life of Trees book online... the illustrations are wonderful! What colors and contract wit the blackness of the paper. I'm going to look for this book in person. Thanks for the suggestion :)
Delete