by Dave Prager
But while everyone predicts good things for Delhi, there’s one particular bright spot that I suspect Jenny and I are among the first to have noticed. It’s too bad that it’s currently so difficult for foreigners to invest in property, because we’d love to buy some real estate before we make this prediction public: we believe that the Daryaganj neighborhood will one day be the most vibrant in Delhi.
Three quarters of a mile long and a quarter mile wide, Daryaganj is perfectly situated to evolve into Delhi’s cultural nerve center. It’s smack in the middle of the city and surrounded on three sides by major tourist draws: the Old City to the west, the Red Fort to the north and Raj Ghat to the east. It will be well served by transit—not only is it bordered by major boulevards that make it easily accessible, but Phase III of the Metro plans a Daryaganj stop.8 Most promising of all, Daryaganj is a full-scale municipal miracle hidden under a few decades of neglect. Its blocks are short, walkable and laid out at right angles, but it still contains enough unpredictability to keep things interesting. It has a surprising number of open spaces for such a small area. And, most importantly, it’s filled with grand old Art Deco buildings that evoke glamour and elegance, with bold forms and sweeping curves that are hidden today behind signs for photocopy shops or textbook printers. According to historian Lucy Peck, Daryaganj’s buildings were built in the 1930s, probably by Indian merchant families who thrived during British rule. The architecture is perfectly suited to amplify the optimism and glorious promise of modernity that we think Daryaganj will represent.
These days, Daryaganj is a hub for the publishing industry. It’s bustling during the workdays and desolate on the weekends. But its geography, street design, throwback architecture, and potential for human-scale vibrancy make it easy to imagine sidewalk cafés, trendy hotels, fashion boutiques, loft apartments, art galleries and coffee shops. Compared to south Delhi’s isolation and sprawl, Daryaganj faces a much easier transition to becoming a twenty-four-hour neighborhood in which artists live, tourists play, writers work, musicians jam, culture is developed, trends are set, and decent espresso is served.
We’re basing this on nothing more than a gut feeling, a bias towards walkable streets, and an overdeveloped sense of optimism, but we believe Daryaganj will one day be Delhi’s Greenwich Village.
After eighteen months in Delhi, the extent of our experience can be plotted in a diamond shape laid out upon the map of the city that hung in our living room. The diamond’s northern apex is squarely in Old Delhi, with threads marking our wanderings that extend up the minar at Jama Masjid, over to Karol Bagh, through Civil Lines and into Majnu Ka Tila, but always retreating to Connaught Place for dinner before night fell and the shadows came out. The sides of our diamond widen along the borders of Central and South Delhi (NH-8 to the west, Mathura Road to the east) before narrowing to join the traffic inching into Gurgaon. Discreet polyps hang off our diamond that represent brief trips to Noida, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Dwarka to attend meetings or visit friends, where we’d scrunch our faces at the concrete apartment buildings, unable to appreciate their appeal despite the obvious middle-class happiness that so many people were finding inside.
It’s clear that our experience covers relatively little of the city. More was unseen than seen, that’s for sure. It was a difficult choice to leave Delhi, with so much still to explore within the shapeless borders of the National Capital Territory and so much further still in diamond-shaped India itself. But an even larger geography beckoned. And given the choice between scattershot appreciation of the Asian continent or focused exploration around our home in Delhi, we chose breadth over depth. All signs pointed to this being a bad idea, from the stock market’s miseries to the various corporate officers in my parent company assuring me that there were no job opportunities east of Dubai. We resigned our jobs anyway, confident that optimism alone would provide for us.
And it did. We found a two-month volunteer gig with a Singaporean charity in exchange for housing and a stipend big enough to buy lunch while we looked for jobs that actually paid. The first of April rolled around and off we went, fools in everyone’s eyes but our own, flying from New Delhi to Singapore’s Dunlop Street. That’s where housing had been arranged for us—coincidentally enough, right in the heart of Singapore’s Little India.
This neighborhood instantly felt like home to us. Though it did not become our actual home (we moved out in a matter of hours when we discovered that our proposed flat had no electricity, no furniture, no shower, and that its toilet was padlocked behind metal shutters in the unoccupied storefront on the ground floor), we returned to Little India as often as we could. And we felt like we were discovering Singapore through Indian eyes more than Western ones: we gaped at the acreage of supermarkets, we were scandalized by the skimpiness of skirts, and we engaged in an immediate hunt for Indian food that was comparable to what we’d just left behind. (This hunt compounded in intensity once we discovered that Singapore’s branch of Saravana Bhavan was as disappointing as Delhi’s was good.) And we continued to apply the assertiveness we’d learned in India. I crossed the street wherever I pleased, for instance, flicking my hands to stop oncoming cars as I had with Delhi drivers. That practice had worked so well in Delhi because Indian drivers expect anything to prance into their path and possess the instincts to brake accordingly; it was a bad idea in Singapore’s tamer traffic, where a driver suddenly confronted by a crazy ang mo doing a Luke Skywalker impression is far less likely to stop in time.
But I couldn’t help my hubris. Man, we’d lived in Delhi—and that is a real city!
We were high on our sense of municipal superiority after living in Delhi. If we could make it there, we could make it anywhere, so I think I can handle crossing your quiet little street, Singapore. You call this traffic? Let me tell you about traffic . . .
Just like living in New York had made us appreciate elements of America’s suburbs we’d taken for granted while growing up (front lawns, parking lots, drugstore employees who don’t strangle us with their eyes), so too did moving to Singapore spotlight elements of Delhi life that we hadn’t realized we’d miss so much: street life that was actually lively, shopkeepers who knew who we were and remembered what we liked, neighbors who were always eager to chat, and the friendly curiosity shown by everyone who encountered us about who we were and what the heck we were doing in their city.
Singapore is as modern and spotless and perfect as everyone thinks. The future here is scripted, though, for better or for worse. Even as we were scrambling to find a flat to replace the toiletless one in Little India, we knew we’d eventually find good jobs, move into a condo with a swimming pool, meet a bunch of other expats, and fly off to other parts of Asia whenever we craved excitement. And that’s exactly how things progressed. Every so often, though, we’d stumble upon a Chinese wedding, or poke our heads inside a circus tent containing some sort of community celebration, or stand in front of a food stall with no English menus. We’d pause at the periphery and peer in—and nobody would acknowledge us.
And this is where our homesickness for Delhi would really kick in. Because if we ever peeked inside a tent in Delhi, a half-dozen people would immediately wave us in, give us food, introduce their aunties, pose their babies for pictures, and extend heartfelt invitations for us to visit their home villages.
As Delhi moves inexorably towards some amorphous “world-class” end point that nobody can define but everyone eagerly anticipates, we know that its spirit will remain constant. Strangers will always wave at us in strange neighborhoods, and every time we stick our noses somewhere it doesn’t belong, someone will always appear to make us feel welcome anyway.
We don’t expect to move back to Delhi in the immediate future. The world is too big, and there are too many other cuisines we still want to immerse ourselves in. But maybe, one day, the stars will align, and we’ll find ourselves living in Delhi once again. Maybe we’ll wake up in a Hauz Khas market that’s now a cosmopolitan neighborhood of wine bar
s and art galleries and designer furniture outlets. Maybe we’ll get to discover it all over again. And maybe on this first morning, the bicycle vendor who wakes us up will also reflect Delhi’s new sophistication: he really will be selling paella.
1. Sam Miller, Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity, Penguin Books India, p.155.
2. http://www.3isite.com/articles/twilight.htm
3. http://mcdonaldsindia.net/about/our_journey.htm
4. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/More-leaks-so-roadclosed/articleshow/4610265.cms
5. http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/aurobindo-margreopens-for-traffic/485519/
6. http://www.authentichistory.com/1865-1897/progressive/riis/illustrations.html
7. http://www.astc.org/exhibitions/rotten/timeline.htm
8. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/metro-set-to-start-workon-challenging-red/796970/
Acknowledgments
I deeply appreciate everyone who shaped this book. First and foremost are the readers and commentators on our blog who shared their views of India and helped influence our own. I can’t emphasize enough how wonderful it feels to get so much unsolicited positive feedback. (And as for the trolls, the joke’s on you: the negative feedback helped just as much.)
Knowing full well that I’ve surely forgotten somebody, I’ll start down the list of people I need to thank. I’ll begin with Harneet Bhatia, Deep Bisht, Nobin Dutta, Pankaj Kashyup, Tapan Khurana, Dipankar Paul, Prajakta Samant, Kasturi Sengupta, Silky Sethi and Bharat Tiwari for answering my strange questions. Thanks to Tarn Kaur, Monali Shah Saraiya, Renuka Gupta, Murali Gopal and Anirban Mukherjee for sharing their memories and visions of Delhi with me. Thanks to Linda Blake for hunting that bottlewallah in vain, to Sachin Kalbag for explaining what lies beneath, and to Amba for answering so many questions without asking why I was writing everything down.
Thanks to Sam Singh for introducing us to the village. Thanks to Prashant Gandhi for helping ensure I didn’t offend Hinduism. And thanks to everyone in New York who helped me get to Delhi in the first place—Toni Iacono, Joan Colten, Bill Manfredi, Tamara Smith and Nick Moore—and to Pete Pierce for reaching through the network and pulling me over.
Even bigger thanks to Sam Miller and Hemanshu Kumar for fact-checking chapter two and answering so many of my municipal questions, and to Edward Luce and Lucy Peck for being there on those rare occurrences when neither Sam nor Hemanshu knew the answer. Thanks to Sharbani Pal for sharing her lovely story, to Robb Selander and Sonia Khurana for remembering office anecdotes, to Nishant Gambhir for giving me the full-on sense of the optimism of Delhi’s youth, and to Daphne for taking over that other aspect of my career when I ran out of time for it. Thanks to Tony Susi for abusing his office printing privileges, reading the manuscript, and convincing me to remove the ill-conceived murder sequence. (I’ll email it to anyone who asks.)
I couldn’t have completed this book without Anurag Giri and Govind Mukundan helping me spell simple Hindi, translate scrawled notes, put names to mantras, and track down endless bits of trivia. Nor could I have done it without Mom, Dad, and especially Mahua Ray Chaudhuri providing insight, feedback and opinions as they reviewed each and every page of each and every chapter.
Subcontinental thanks go to the great team at HarperCollins India: Saugata Mukherjee for sealing the deal, V.K. Karthika for moving it forward, and Ajitha G.S. for making it perfect. And global thanks go to Cal Barksdale and everyone at Arcade and Skyhorse Publishing for everything they have done and will do for me, for this book, and for Delhi.
Most of all, thanks to Jenny for starting the blog, for letting me horn in on it, for convincing me that a book could be written at all (although she says the suggestion came from Mark Vitelli, so I’ll send a bowling fist bump over to him as well), for reading it, for critiquing it, for supporting it, for supporting me, and for being the perfect wife, collaborator and friend.
Index
advertising, 145–146, 230, 256–257
alcoholic beverages, 141–147
beer, 141–142
Kingfisher beer, 141
liquor stores, 143–144
Scotch, 142
used bottles, 141–142, 144–147
whisky, 88, 142, 145
wine, 143
American Community Support Association (ACSA), 336
Anupshahr, 264–266, 309–310
Asian Games, 367
Aurobindo Marg, 7, 18, 47, 369–371
autorickshaws, 13, 16, 52, 61–78, 180–182, 354
cheating, 70
drivers of, 62–66, 71–72, 75–77
meter, 63–64, 102
safety, 71
bargaining. See negotiating
beggars, 193–194, 253, 303–304, 306–310
children, 306–309
bhang, 111, 113–114
Bichola, 268–269
Bollywood, 60–61, 121
bootlegged goods, 194–195, 199–201, 306. See also intellectual property bribes. See corruption
bureaucracy, 260–261, 340–344
buses. See transportation
cars, 59–60, 80, 87
Hindustan Ambassador, 80
Honda City, 60–61
Tata Indicas, 60–61, 80
Toyota Innovas, 80, 87
chai, 155–157
change (monetary), 74–76
child brides, 266–268
climate. See weather
clothing, 351–352
Commonwealth Games, 367
commuting, 52, 57, 229, 231–241, 244–246, 259–260, 302–303
compressed natural gas (CNG), 14
copyright. See intellectual property
cricket, 361–362
crime, 276–277, 290–297
against women, 290–292, 296
corruption, 296–299, 309–312
statistics, 294–295
cultural traits
body language, 124–127, 360–361
bluntness, 261–263
consumerism, 145–146, 224–228
friendliness, 101–102
head bobble, 94, 126–127
importance of family, 122
masculinity, 123–124
personal space, 123
sharing of food, 132–134
stoicism, 230–231, 239–240, 259–260, 269
touching feet, 124–125
Cushman & Wakefield (real estate firm), 223
customer service, 204–209
Delhi
at night, 7–9, 51–52
demographics, 294–295
Delhi Master Plan (1962), 195
development of, 373–374
drinking water, 138–140
getting directions, 72–74
getting lost, 30
infrastructure, 18, 53–54, 281–284, 367–372
monuments, 50
morning, 1–4, 6–10, 19
Delhi region
Dwarka, 57–58, 378
East Delhi, 57–58
Faridabad, 57–58, 378
Ghaziabad, 57–58, 378
Greater Noida, 57–58
Noida, 57–58, 378
North Delhi, 57–58
Rohini, 57–58
South Delhi, 45–53
West Delhi, 57–58
Delhi sights
Asiad Tower, 50–51
Delhi Gate, 197
Dilli Haat, 154
Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, 166
India Gate, 43–45
Jahanpanah City Forest, 297–299
Raisina Hill, 43
Raj Ghat, 37–38
Rajpath, 43–44
Siri Fort, 50, 350–351
Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity (Miller), 38, 324
DLF Corporation, 57
Eating Out in Delhi, 164–167, 203–204, 285–286
electricity, 16, 54
embassies
Canadian, 43
US, 8, 336, 343–344
exchange rate, 346–348
exer
cise, 179–182
running, 180
walking, 180–182
expats
comfort in India, 352–357
corporate perks, 59–60, 87
guilt, 348–350
kinds of, 335–340
lack of perspective, 239–241, 243, 259–260, 263, 269, 300–301, 303
safety and security, 165–166, 184–185
salary, 346–348
sensory overload, 352–354
as tourist attractions, 103–105
turnover, 337–339
extortion. See crime, corruption
food
food safety, 137–138, 151, 270–271, 285–286
fruit, 134–138
golgappas, 153–155
home cooking, 129–131
paan, 159–161
paella, 1–2, 381
street food, 151–157
sushi, 254
vegetables, 134–138
Foreigner Regional Registration Offices (FRRO), 341–345
funerals, 108
Ganges River, 265
garbage, 6, 21, 29, 322–326, 359
gossip, 272–277
Gurgaon, 3–4, 11, 19, 53–58, 232, 242, 372
DLF Cyber City, 55–57, 242–244, 252
Udyog Vihar, 251–253, 255
Hamilton Court, 11, 54
henna, 115–116
holidays
Diwali, 106–107
fireworks, 106–107
Holi, 110–114
hospitals
AIIMS Hospital, 51–52
Max Hospital, 191
Safdarjung Hospital, 188–189
hotels
five-star, 42–43, 148–149
Oberoi Hotel, 149
Park Hotel, 350
Sunday brunch, 149
How the Other Half Lives (Riis), 373–374
ICICI Bank, 9, 277–279
In Spite of the Gods (Luce), 303, 309, 344
India
expectations for, 330–333
