Greetings on our last night.. and final hours in Delhi — Homeward Bound!

January 6, 2014 — 10:30 pm in Delhi; 8:45 in California

We are leaving Delhi in a few hours; flights from India are always at strange times. Our flight leaves Delhi at 3 a.m. to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to SFO.. All told about 28 hours I think.. maybe more. But we gain a lot of time en route.

Decided to take it easy, given that it would be a very very long day and night and next day… So we slept in, had tea and muffins.. worked on our courses, to be prepared for classes later this week…. and then took a stroll down the street to eat at a little local joint called Servana Bhavan; they specialize in dosas. Ordered two different kinds (not really knowing what we were ordering). Everyone was Indian except us. Food was fine. Came on plastic platters.. and we drank (with some fear and trepidation about getting sick on the last day) water in tin cups washed with tap water. Oh well. Total cost for the lunch was about $3.

Then we strolled a bit, past little shops that are struggling because Delhi is building an extension to the Metro and many streets are blocked for the construction which has already lasted two years and will continue for another two.. We were taken by a little shop that sold copper goods and some wooden blocks used for stamping patterns on fabrics and walls. It appeared that no one was tending the shop, so we were about to leave when we heard a little voice say “I’m here!”… and lo and behold a woman about 4′ tall appeared. Turns out she’s Tibetan; came to Delhi 60 years ago — before the Chinese invaded Tibet. She was adorable. 88 years old; in seemingly good health; still working 7 days a week/10 hours each day in this little shop. Her English was remarkably good. She said she learned by working and talking to customers. She has one son who owns a little inn up north and she has three grandchildren — one of whom lives in Jersey City. He’s a dancer — not a good profession for a boy, she told us — it’s for girls. And she wrinkled her nose as she told us this information. She thinks he’s a little crazy.

We chatted a bit more as she told us that other shopkeepers just want to make money. She needs money too, but she cares more…

Came back to the hotel; packed and a little more work… and then it was time to head for dinner — This part is for the foodies.. Feel free to stop if you don’t care.

We had made reservations when we first arrived in Delhi to eat at Indian Accent — a restaurant that is listed everywhere as one of Delhi’s top five. We couldn’t get reservations for Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.. so Monday it was. We didn’t think much more about it — but when we asked for a taxi and told the concierge where we were headed, he said we were in for an amazing treat; similar comments from the chief bellman who got the taxi for us.. Off we went. It was a 30 minute drive (!!) that took nearly an hour; frankly we were ready to call it quits..

But despite unbelievable traffic (as always here in Delhi, especially early evening) and the lingering thick fog making visibility difficult — we charged on and arrived at a totally new neighborhood — looked rather upscale.. and then at the door of Indian Accent — which was sleek, chic, and modern; very tastefully put together. Nothing like anything else we had seen in Delhi (or even in prior trip through southern India).

We decided to go with the Chef’s Tasting Menu(s)… one being veggie and one being non-veggie.. and the wine pairings for each.. Mike and I shared, so we really tasted about 14 dishes.

OK.. Here’s the lineup.. with each being artfully constructed and plated on beautiful plates and serving dishes.

• mini naans stuffed with cheese
• mini cup of pea soup with a toasted something garnish dashing across the top of the very cylindrical cup
•  Veggie and Non-Veggie – potato sphere chaat with white pea “ragda”; Thai pomelo segments with amla murabba reduction, and crispy garlic (served with champagne for the pairing)
• Veggie – baked paneer pinwheel with coriander pesto; Non-Veggie – baked fish with masala butter and white bait papad (with sauvignon blanc)
• Veggie – morel mushroom pinwheel with crushed walnut and parmesan papad; Non-Veggie – Chilean spare ribs coated in sun dried mango and toasted pumpkin seed (I think) (with shiraz)
• Palette Cleanser — kulfi sorbet (like pomegranate frozen ices on a tiny stick)
• Veggie – tadka vegetables, baby spinach, roasted sesame in a little pastry shell; Non-Veggie – an amazing lamb dish (with zinfandel and chianti)
• wasabi and cucumber raita/ black dairy dal/ special “kulcha”
• desserts – haji-ali inspired sitaphal cream.. sort of coriander crème brulee/ ginger ice cream/ doda burfi treacle tart (I think it’s an Indian version of fudge.. but much creamier.. (with muscatel from Spain)
• platter of all sorts of sweets…

OK.. it was beyond fabulous.. and definitely a wonderful way to end our stay in Delhi.. and also to ponder the extreme differences in the country — with people begging as soon as you get close to an area where they think foreigners might come.. and then this place. Well just so much to think about.

We’re crashing to finish packing now.. and we are off to the airport.. looks like it will be a 40 hour day.. But home soon.

Thanks for reading and sending so many notes.

fern

January 5, 2014

Greetings…

Made our way to meet the driver with whom we had contracted to take us on the three-hour drive to Agra to see the Taj Mahal… He was downstairs (in the parking area). When you’ve got some arrangement for a driver, you let the hotel guys at the door know and they have these walkie talkies and microphones that beam into the parking area where the drivers wait. When the “call” goes out, the driver then leaves the parking area and heads to the front of the hotel. Our guy (Ram) came — and off we went… sort of. Turns out that Ram had sub-contracted our ride to a friend named Krishna — so Krishna showed up out of nowhere and Ram took off, leaving us to Krishna. There must be layers and layers of the informal economy here in Delhi. We figure that Ram (who showed up at the end of the day as we returned to the hotel to collect the money) takes about 50% and gives Krishna 50%.. Maybe the percentage is even greater. Anyway, off we went to Agra with Krishna.

The weather was awful.. fog and some kind of inversion trapping all the pollution, making visibility near zero. It was actually pretty frightening at times with about 40 feet of visibility – max; couldn’t see anything in front of us or on either side for at least 45 minutes. We laughed saying that the title of today’s report might be “We went to see the Taj but it had disappeared.” It’s a five- or six-lane highway for most of the three-hour journey, and despite the unbelievable lack of visibility.. cars were honking and passing the whole way.

Agra sits on the banks of the Yamuna River. And as we approached Agra — a really dirty town with a population of about 1,700,000 — a mere village. Women are washing clothes in the river and laying everything out to dry on the edges of the water. Four and five people are sharing rickshaws that seat only two. And as you get closer, people are trying to sell you little Taj Majals.

It took more than three hours given the fog— and we were beginning to worry whether or not we’d even see anything. Arrived in Agra and decided to have lunch before seeing the Taj. Went to a hotel and ate lunch.. and then took a pedal-powered rickshaw from the restaurant to the entrance of the Taj. India has an interesting approach to entry into its monuments. There’s a two-tiered fee structure: locals pay one rate and all foreigners pay a rate that is about 10 times greater. (Actually this part was the same in Nepal and Tibet, although not to such a great extent.) But once you get your “special” ticket, here in Delhi — you are referred to as a “high-value ticket holder” and you consistently go on different lines (actually adjacent lines) to the locals (who have the low-value tickets!).. So while the entry line snaked and snaked and probably would take about 30 minutes just to get to the front entry.. we were escorted right in.. no one on our lines. Again, though — a line for men and a line for women.. because of the security involved and the pat downs. So once again, I was in before Mike..

Hard to really describe the Taj and the grounds that surround it. It’s huge.. but basically it’s a white marble mausoleum built by the Mughal emperor to memorialize his third wife who died in childbirth delivering their 14th child!!! Don’t know how many other children were sired by the emperor with his two previous (or maybe simultaneous) wives. She died in 1631 and construction began in 1632 — and lasted for 20 years.. built by thousands of slaves and craftsmen. Supposedly about four million people visit the Taj Mahal annually. I think about 50% of them decided to come today.. despite the fog and mist which made the place both mysterious and mystical.. and also very “flat.” For all its grandeur, it’s sort of simple. Very unadorned; all shades of white and off white.. and just a small amount of inlaid color (muted) in some trim areas.

The walk to the building down paths with reflective pools on either side, is like trying to get into Nordstroms on a day when they’d have a 95% off sale!… but you’re walking between, among, behind, and next to everyone taking pictures — on smart phones, with cameras, with videos, etc. Then as you approach the huge edifice, once again, the high-value ticket holders go down one aisle and the others in a different aisle.. We get to the door very quickly and are also given little paper booties to cover our shoes; the other people have to take off their shoes and leave them in boxes along the way. But once you reach the actual entry arch the two lines merge and then it’s pretty chaotic. Inside the mausoleum it’s claustrophobic (at least for me as I don’t do well in tight spaces that are packed body to body with people).. and there’s only one way out. So you just have to hope that the crowds will not become uncontrollable.

Made it out and back to the parking area to find Krishna. The drive back to Delhi (another three hours) was a tiny bit better but the fog was still incredibly thick.. and merging with pollution and with smoke from coal-burning plants making bricks (we think) that line the highway for a portion of the trip. With white knuckles, we sat quietly in the back of the car.. and hoped for the best. We thought we’d be back from the Taj at about 4pm… Made it back at 7 pm…

Quickly changed clothes and headed to Bukhara — a restaurant located in a hotel about 20 minutes from our hotel. It’s a very highly-rated restaurant and shows up in lots of magazine articles. While the hotel and the restaurant could not have been more poorly designed, the food was fantastic… A traditional Tandoor restaurant.. We shared a lamb kebab (with the lamb having been marinated and covered with all sorts of spices) and a half-order of a pepper stuffed with vegetables and a half-order of a potato stuffed with fruits and nuts… Topped the meal off with basmati rice pudding, Food was quite good..

That’s it for today.. Taj Mahal had been on the bucket list. Check. Check. Done.

Will write my last note tomorrow, just before we head to the airport — Our flight leaves at 3 am.. (so it’s either Monday night or Tuesday morning depending on how long you consider your day. I generally deal with the day as lasting as long as I’m awake.. So it will be Monday night for me; officially it will be Tuesday morning (India time ).

Until tomorrow –

Fern

Saturday, January 4, 2014. Delhi

We got picked up at the hotel at 10:30 sharp, as planned, by Pradeep’s driver. Mike met Pradeep this past summer when he visited Mike’s office in Oakland. Pradeep is a friend of one of our friends (an American trained at Harvard and MIT, who went to India in the early 1970s to work as an architect and to create a school of planning at Ahmdebad. In the late 70s he established some kind of a center and also an architectural and planning firm in Pune). Pradeep came to Berkeley to drop off his son who is in the Graduate Landscape Architecture Program at UCB. Mike mentioned to Pradeep at that time that we would most likely be coming to Delhi at the end of the year.

Pradeep reached out several times to be certain that we would connect when in Delhi. So, Pradeep’s driver picked us up at the hotel and off we went to the outer edge of the southern part of Delhi to a very small village where Pradeep has built his nationally-known architectural and urban planning practice. The practice of having a “driver,” by the way, is very very common for professionals in India. (We had already experienced this when we visited friends in Mumbai more than 15 years ago.) Pradeep owns the car and Krishna drives the car. Most likely Pradeep never drives himself, although I cannot be certain. Driving in India is an absolute “art” and a skill that is probably best left to those who do it for a living.

Anyway, the drive from the hotel to the small village of Aya Nagar took about an hour. The “village” is outside of the urban planning zone for the city of Delhi — meaning that Aya Nagar is sort of left on its own — garbage is only picked up when those newer residents complain; there are no guidelines for planning; there are no government offices that check construction. Essentially it is even more of a free-for-all than the rest of Delhi. Pradeep lives within the center of Delhi and “commutes” (with driver) daily about 40 minutes each way. Initially he opened his office in central Delhi, but about 15 years ago — as the prices of real estate and office space zoomed — he decided to look for larger space and also to create a workspace that met his many interests and needs. Somehow, he wound up buying property in Aya Nagar and built a rambling and wonderful complex that includes his architecture/planning firm (with about 30 employees); a wood shop downstairs where furniture is designed and built to order; a café-like space where staff eats together each day for lunch (with the food coming from an NGO in the town that is a training ground for women to get employment); an outdoor snaking channel of waters and fish ponds and plants that purifies their gray and black water that is eventually used for irrigation; a set of about 8 geese, some dogs, and more. The “building” is really a complex of several structures and you move from one to the other by a series of outdoor bridges that link the buildings at each floor level. We got the royal tour of the place and then went for a walk in the “village” — together with the cows, sleepy dogs, and village people — many of whom Pradeep knew.

We stopped off to visit the NGO where the lunches are made, met the director, and watched a group of women making butterflies out of paper to sell at a craft fair coming up in February. Chatted a bit to better understand their funding structure and then continued our “stroll” in the completely unpaved, dusty village. According to Pradeep, 10 years ago there was virtually nothing in Aya Nagar and now it’s built up — of its own efforts. There are little shops everywhere, and people migrating from the south to Delhi — where there are more jobs — are coming to the town. Pradeep says that it will gradually be incorporated into the city of Delhi and then will have the usual restrictions… for the better and also for the worse.

At the office, we were greeted by the whole staff (all Indians) — and also three other people — who are probably all in their early to mid-30s:

• Aditi – a furniture and interior designer trained at the National Institute for Design in India — a university begun by Charles and Ray Eames at the request of the highest level of Indian government in the late 1950s. The government wanted recommendations as to how best to develop a design training program that could help small industries throughout the country and that could preserve high quality Indian design of consumer goods. As I understand it (and I remember reading a bit of this history years ago), the Eameses came to India through Ford Foundation funding and stayed many months to prepare the recommendations. They traveled throughout India, studying different centers of design, handicrafts, and manufacturing, and eventually issued an important report which led to the establishment of the National Institute of Design in the very early 1960s. It was developed to be an autonomous national institution for research, service, and training in Industrial Design and Visual Communication. Once graduating, Aditi realized that her training was really not sensitive to India’s materials and needs.
• Her husband who is a documentary filmmaker (with a film airing on their public television station next week, I think).
• Pankaj, her brother who was visiting for a month — from Oakland!!! Turns out that he graduated in urban design in India and then went to MIT for his Masters in Urban Planning.. and stayed in Boston, later DC — working as a consultant to large companies. He began to realize that he had no interest serving the corporate class and headed to San Francisco where he briefly worked for the city of San Francisco’s environmental department.. and continued to search for what he considered to be a more “meaningful” position and something that matched his politics (left). So, for the past 18 months he has been part of the Arizmendi cooperative bakery, first in the Oakland branch and now in the Mission District. (As Pradeep described him — an MIT-trained baker!).. We had a lot to talk about, especially since Mike and I are big fans of Arizmendi. What a very very small world it is.

So, Aditi and her husband own and live in an amazing house down the road from Pradeep’s office, designed by Pradeep a few years ago. In it she has created her own little world — a great living space; a work space for her small staff who help her develop and produce her own line of wonderful bags and purses made of special fabrics that she sources from small villages throughout India; the staff are all village people, most of whom sat on the floor in tiny spaces working when we arrived; and a “showroom.” Aditi was trained much like me in a post-Bauhaus method so we had a lot in common — the good and the bad of this kind of aesthetic training. Her product line uses all sorts of recycled materials and she collects every scrap of fabric that is a “byproduct” of the bags. Then she takes these tiny, teeny scraps and the women in the village sew them together to make yet other bags using these “throw-away” pieces.

The brick house has all sorts of bright colored trim reflecting Aditi’s wonderful sense of style and taste — chartreuse doors and bright green edges, etc. There is a complex of three houses that Pradeep designed. Two of the others are owned by architects on his staff.

The office served us an Indian lunch (except for the carrot cake they had for dessert — made in India, but not very traditional — as a happy new year cake).. Everyone took lots of pictures — we of them, them of us, them with us, us with them.. seemed like everyone had a camera going at one time or another.

At about 3:30, they suggested that we go to a special craft exhibition and sale back in the city. Pradeep offered his driver again, but we insisted on taking the Delhi Metro (to try it out).. So the driver took us to the closest station (about 10 minutes from the office).. but of course Pradeep would not really let us on the Metro alone (in the end, it was probably a good decision). He sent a staffer with us who literally shepherded us into the train station, bought the Metro tickets, and went with us for about 30 minutes on the absolutely jam-packed train and then got off with us and walked us to the exhibit/open air craft center. Once safely inside the exhibit area, he bid us farewell.

The Metro line that we were on begins as an above ground line and eventually tunnels underground as it reaches deeper into the city.

So, turns out that the exhibit and craft show/fair was organized on a huge urban space that Pradeep designed. The basic plan remains the same, but every two weeks the shopkeepers change so that crafts people from all over India have an opportunity to display and sell their goods. For these two weeks it was crafts from all over India, displayed in little stalls — curated by an Indian woman and friend of Pradeep who had just completed a book about craft in India! We were supposed to go up to meet her as she was giving a little speech but it was crowded so we walked the fair instead — and I’m afraid made way too many purchases.

By the time we left the craft fair it was getting dark and cold, so we opted for a taxi.. and here we are at the hotel. Tomorrow we do the tourist bit — going to the Taj Mahal. We really considered skipping it, but that would be weird. We’ve linked up with one of the taxi drivers that we had a day or so ago… He’s coming in a “white car” — not the taxi; they refer a lot to “white cars” which I think are meant to describe more comfortable cars with good cushioned seats. The hotel also has a service for taking people to the Taj (which is a three-hour drive in each direction). But the hotel arrangements are a third more than our “deal.” So that’s tomorrow.. six hours in a car; two at the Taj and lunch somewhere in Agra (the city where the Taj is located). Then we’ve made reservations for dinner for tomorrow night at one of Delhi’s best restaurants (Bukhara).. It will be another exhausting day. We leave very late on Monday.. and have no plans for Monday except to get some work done to be prepared for our arrival on Tuesday and travel to Seattle on Wednesday.

One last thing, I forgot to mention — everywhere you go — into the hotel, into shopping districts, into the craft exhibition, into monuments, into the Metro — you have to walk through security screening devices and also open your bags. When we come to the hotel by taxi, the taxi must open his trunk to be checked out. It’s all very casual and seems rather lax, but it’s there and done none the less.

Best — Fern

Shubh sundhyaa… which I think means Good evening.

January 3, 2014. Delhi, India. 7:30 pm. Greetings from Delhi.

Today was a complicated and exhausting — but really great.

After breakfast we got a taxi and just told him to take us to the Red Fort (a destination we would only be at briefly, but it was the easiest way to get to a general area and then walk from there). We walked around the exterior of the Fort and went inside briefly… and then headed out to explore the city! (The Red Fort was constructed to be the fortified palace of Shahjahanabad in 1648. As you might imagine, the name represents the red sandstone walls. The structure is considered to reflect the height of creativity of this period… and while it was apparently planned according to Islamic models and plans it has a lot of elements that fuse other traditions.)

So, we quickly left the Fort (a little too touristy for us) and headed across the main street (a very very daring act — but we utilized all those skills we learned in Nepal, going together with Indians and never standing as the first person in the row that is trying to cross the street. Sometimes this is really an art, as the Indians seem to have the pace down pretty well and the pace changes if the majority of vehicles that you need to cross are cars, or buses, or motorcycles, or cycles, or rickshaws.

Anyway, we made it across and walked a few blocks and then headed into miles and miles of the most chaotic, busy, crowded, noisy series of bazaars you can imagine. Actually, there is order of a certain kind. You can walk through these very very narrow streets — varying from between 6 feet to 10 feet wide, with shops on both sides (really stalls) whose width is generally anywhere from 5 feet to 12 feet wide (and sometimes even more narrow) — and go for the equivalent of 20 blocks and all the shops are selling wedding saris, or go the equivalent of 8 blocks and everyone is selling used tires .. or decorative ribbon.. or burkhas… or fancy burkhas. So the organization is by “type” which is similar to how Hanoi streets in the old section are set up, too.. and as is the case in many other cities.

The activity is very intense. People everywhere — Indians, Muslims, Hindus, — some in western garb and many in Muslim outfits. And amid the people walking in these narrow streets are workers trying to deliver goods (being carried to and fro either on the heads of workers or in rickshaws (cycles) being driven by workers. And then there are the motorcycles, and the people being carted all over by someone else’s pedal power or by motor-driven rickshaws (including us after several hours of walking the streets of the bazaars!) There’s also a huge amount of food stalls.. one guy (and they all appear to be men) cooking at a stove and people lining up to grab a bite. Some of the food looked great, but we promised ourselves to be ultra-careful on these final days so as not to get sick (or any sicker than we already are). We started our walk at about 11 a.m. and at 2 decided we needed to eat something.

We had the name of a “restaurant” in this Chandni Chowk area — given to us by a landscape architect who had come to the states in the fall to visit Mike because his son was headed to Berkeley. He knew Mike through a mutual friend (a Harvard classmate of Mike’s) who is an American but who has lived in India for the last 40 years (that’s another story for another time). Anyway, we will meet up with this architect tomorrow morning, visit his office, and go see some of the slums of Delhi. So we hopped onto one of the pedal-powered rickshaws and once again a guy who probably weighs 120 lbs pedaled both of us for about 10 minutes in the middle of traffic, the narrow streets where two rickshaws can barely get by if they are side by side, potholes and garbage piles everywhere, etc… and he took us to the big mosque, which we knew was very close to “Karim” — the restaurant we were looking for. Sure enough, a few feet into an alley, there was a sign that said “Karim – inside restaurant” with an arrow. Karim must be quite an entrepreneur…

From what we read on the menu (they had an English version).. some ancestor was the head chef for the royal family in the 1700s.. and that employment ended in mid 1800s… when the last of that royal line was dethroned (?).. But the children and grandchildren inherited the cooking information.. and in 1911 during the coronation of King George V, the family moved back to Delhi and had the idea to open a “restaurant” with the idea that the foods of the royals should be available to common people.

So, Karim’s is a series of little spaces on both sides of the street (alley) — totaling about 6 structures. Each can probably seat about 20 people (in some cases on two floors). It’s very very basic. Formica tables, plastic dishes, only soup spoons (no forks).. and a straight- forward menu (which was in English, although the waiter couldn’t speak any English, but he knew the menu organization by heart so we could just point and he’d figure it out). We shared our table (with a young couple from Delhi; he was a lawyer, she’s in biotech) and at the end of the meal chatted with them. We got the half-order of chicken biryani and a half-order of tandoori chicken tika and some naan. They don’t serve any wine or beer; just coke and soda water (which comes in a paper cup). We ate “upstairs.” Food was good. And very cheap. The whole lunch costs us about $7.00 I think.

After lunch we continued our walk into the bazaar area — going even deeper into this maze. Most shops have generators out in the front of the shop, on the street, for their lights (about two naked light bulbs per shop), adding to the noise of the street. And we walked into a totally different section for about 45 minutes. Not really certain, but I think we were in a section that had Pakistani food and maybe Pakistani vendors. Wherever we walked in this section there would be groups of impoverished Pakistani people — about 20 or so to a group — squatting on the ground, very close to one another, and very close to particular stalls. We think that these particular restaurants give them scraps of food to eat after the lunch hour. As the hour became later we could see these groups — still on the ground — eating rice and other foods with their hands.

Another point — someone is always sweeping these little streets/alleys using a straw broom.. and they attempt to make piles of the dirt and garbage that is strewn in each little area. But the act of doing the sweeping and walking by it constantly was a real mess for our American sinuses. Not much one can do. It seems as if these little piles just stay there; not sure that they every get collected into any larger garbage zone.

After a total of about 4.5 hours of walking, we jumped into a pedal-driven rickshaw to get back to the Red Fort area where the original taxi driver was to meet us. He was there, although his car was blocked by a parked bus with no driver in sight.. But only a minor detail. Headed back to the hotel.. and then off to a “stand-alone” restaurant (as they refer to all restaurants that are not in hotels) called Veda.. a somewhat upscale tandoori place that had a mix of patrons — Germans, French (from what we could hear from eavesdropping) and mostly Indian (professional class we assume)… Good meal (appetizer was fried yogurt stuffed with figs with a mint sauce).. rest of meal was lamb.

That’s it.. signing off.

Fern