Sensations of Epic Proportions and the New Knight

  Delhi, India
Monday, June 25, 2007

The Gold Regency, an overstated hotel, at Main Bazar in Paharganj, Delhi was the rendezvous place for Nate, Kevin, and me. In the afternoon of my second Delhi day, Kevin and Nate arrived to the gray marble lobby with their trip gear. As we talked, we arranged our train journey for the next day and walked along the frenetic streets of Paharganj and Connaught Place (For another take on our Delhi to Ladakh trip, you can look at Kevin's travelpod here).

Along these streets, Delhi comes alive and attacks your senses. Incense and the smell of fresh vegetable samosas contrast with burning heaps of plastic and rancid sidewalk urinals. Upscale Chinese restaurants with chilly air conditioning provides a respite from the burning sun and humid air. Salesmen try their best to lure you into their store while street vendors sell mangoes, bananas, and more, rapidly ripening in the heat and sun. Rickshaw wallahs block your path so you notice them while vehicles of all kinds weave through the polluted streets.

Before Kevin and Nate arrived, I had one day to explore Delhi, so decided to stay local and pick one place to visit, still needing to recover a bit from my illness. Old Delhi was the destination. I found a sympathetic cycle rickshaw wallah and headed for the Friday Mosque, the Jama Masjid, as the late afternoon call to prayer was just ending. I entered into a peaceful courtyard of red sandstone in front of the largest mosque in India, also red but with white marble adorning its simple facade, dome, and minarets.

The Friday Mosque was Shah Jahan's final masterpiece, after the Taj Mahal was completed. Surrounding it was the old town of Delhi, site of innumerable histories and fictional tales. Here was the former fictional slum home of Picture Singh, Parvati the Witch, and Saleem Sinai before Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's Emergency destroyed their homes and their lives, as told in Salman Rushdie's tale Midnight's Children, my reading material for this leg of the journey.

Synchronicity: Tony Blair was beknighting Salman Rushdie in England.


At the mosque, dozens of people greeted me, refreshed after their prayers to Mecca. I climbed the minaret with youths eager to see the late afternoon sun across Delhi.

"You sit and enjoy," I pointed at the back seat to the cycle rickshaw wallah, who waited for me outside the Friday Mosque. This was my one opportunity to navigate a cycle rickshaw through the crazy Old Delhi streets. From the front, the bike seemed unsteady, tilting to the right, as I swerved through the cityscape towards the Red Fort, turning bright red in the sunset.

The time had arrived: our train to Chandigarh, in the Punjab, gateway to the Himalayas was leaving early in the morning, just the right time for everyone's morning crap. The train accelerated north through the slums of Delhi, as dozens of people squatted in full view of the train. Salman Rushdie, the fresh knight, described this scene well as his protagonist Saleem looked out of the train at a squatter. "Watch this," the man said as he bent his knees in the railway gravel: "Fifteen inches!"

The Indian Department of Tourism's slogan is "Incredible !ndia" which is fitting, but only capures part of the story; it takes an epic the size of Midnight's Children to capture a good part of the contrasts, diversity, emotions, spirituality, filth, corruption, and history of India, invented at Midnight on August 15, 1947.