Arre Kya Baat Hai! (old)

It was almost a year since I had been in Delhi. Usually, everytime I reached Delhi international airport, I felt cheated that they hadn't improved on the rotting structure that does not go along with the image of "Shining India". However, this time I was coming from Bangalore. Compared to Bangalore's "international" airport, Delhi's national airport was reassuringly spacious, nice and clean with working luggage delivery conveyor belts.

The prepaid taxi service from the airport still works well, even if everyone seems to be in a hurry, trying to push forward from all sides. This pushing and hurrying is part of Indian way of living now, everywhere on the roads and queues in public spaces, people seem irritable and hurried, ready to honk, accelrating if anyone tries to cross the road in front of them. Fortunately, this hurry seems to vanish as we go back to our private spaces. As I paid 180 rupees at the prepaid taxi booth, I mentally converted the amount to euros - it seems that I can think only in euros and everytime I pay for something, I can't stop myself from converting it into euros - just little more than 3 euros for almost 20 km of journey, I thought gleefully, remembering the 30 euros paid in Bologna for the 6-7 kms to the airport.
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Travelling on the outer Ring road is relatively smooth with all the flyovers, with only a few red lights on the way. It is still not the wonderful wide highway of Beijing or Bangkok, but it is a vast improvement on the chaos of a few years ago.

The familiar landmarks on the way are changing so quickly. I was here only one year ago and yet I can see so many changed buildings. Simple plain houses are transformed into multistorey posh apartment buildings (mostly without any garages so that all the new cars then spill on the roads) and new malls and shopping centres are mushrooming, while streets have problems in expanding and accomodating all the new cars and SUVs. In fact, as soon as we leave the Ring road, the traffic slows down considerably.

With the metro, travelling in Delhi has been transformed. Reaching Delhi university from C.P. or going to far away places like Tilak Nagar are swift, comfortable journeys. Coming out at Chawri Baazar from the deep metro tunnel is like being in "Back to the future" - 21st century meets 17th century with narrow winding streets, running sewers, people spitting paans and other things, rickshaws blowing bhompoo and a spiderwebs of thick naked wires running around the shops and houses like those thick gold chains that Circuit sports in Lago Raho Munnabhai.

The central park in CP is finally reincarnated and is an improvement on its previous birth with lovely green grass and a zen fountains and gentle flowing water-fall used by pigeons as their private hammam and vaguely japanese looking wooden bridges.


I have finally understood the trick of finding autorickshaws in C.P. - roads going in different directions come out like rays from the outer circle of C.P., like spooks of a bicycle wheel and you need to walk to the spook road that leads to your direction. For example, for going to south Delhi, it is useless to try to find an auto on Baba Kharag Singh Marg or Madras Hotel, you must walk to Janpath and then search for the auto. Because I was mentally converting all the fares in euros all the time, I never needed to bargain with autos about the fare - I am sorry Delhiwallas if I have spoiled so many autowallas by paying whatever fare they were asking!
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Travelling always by taxis, autos and air-conditioned cars, I felt that I was missing something. It was kind of antiseptic and unreal. No pushing, no squeezing, no fighting, no sweat, no gaalis, no loud songs ... it was unreal. So I got in a DTC bus. The old man sitting next to me smiled at me and started talking to me. When I told him that I lived in Italy, he told me about his journey to Rome some fifty years ago as part of his government service. "I am retired now", he explained sadly, underlining the loss of social standing that retirement seems to bring.

I was wearing a khadi kurta and suitably shabby, so curiously I asked him, "How did you realise that I am not local?" "Your smell is nice and different", he smiled again. It was the fault of deodorant & Kenzo eau de toilette that had given me away? Delhi bus travellers don't put those kinds of things! Or perhaps, it was just my luck that he was more aware compared to average bus travellers?

Persons in the bus are different compared to co-travellers in Europe. Apart from the fact that in a bus the space is limited and often you are squeezed with others poking in your ribs and blowing garlic fumes in your face, persons behave differently in India. Even in a metro. Persons look at each other openly and don't remove their gaze if you look at them. Of course there are those that gaze outside the windows lost in their thoughts, but they laugh and talk without worrying about other passengers.
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Are there any places in Delhi that I have never seen? Answering this question, I found myself in Mehrauli archeological park, close to the mehrauli flower market, not very far from Qutub Minaar.

If you haven't been there, go and take a look at it. Entry is free. At the more famous monuments, I feel that entry tickets have a reservation system based on the colour of your skin. If you look Indian, you are Indian and you pay about 20 cents for entry. But if you are white or black skinned, you are easily taken for a foreigner and you must pay about 4 euros to enter. It seems like a way of saying that we are a poor country and we can't afford to ask our own citizens to pay so much, but because for us all foreigners are rich so they should pay more. However, you can be someone from Jhumaritalayia or Ambani or Ratan Tata or a NRI and still pay 10 rupees and you can be a rich tourist or a student from Ethiopia or Europe and you must pay 250 rupees. China had similar system till late nineties. As a foreigner, an Indian paid more than what a Chinese paid to see the Forbidden City. Then, probably they decided that they were enough developed and scrapped the system, making everyone pay the same amount. Perhaps one day India Shining will also make India a developed country, and so we will not need to ask foreigners to subsidize the upkeep of our monuments!

Anyway, sorry for the digression and lets go back to Mehrauli archeological park. The whole area has been restored thanks to funds from Agha Khan foundation. Metcalf's chattri (also called Metcalf's follies), the twin graves of Kaamali and Jaamali, the ruins of turkish slave Balban who had become the emperor ... there is lot to see.

The explanation board at Jaamali Kaamali mosque describes Jaamali as a well known poet while it says that Kaamali was someone unknown. "They were lovers and because they don't want to admit that there were gay relationships in India, so they are glossing about it", someone says. The twin tombs lying close to each other inside the beautiful building with blue tiles and wonderful mosaics with romantic couplets of Jaamali all around on the walls do seem very romantic.

It was the first time that I came through Bangalore. We were going to have a regional meeting on traditional medicine. The arrival hall of Bangalore international airport was a shock. Though the Delhi international airport is quite a let down but Bangalore was even worse. All the thoughts about Bangalore being the silicon valley of India and an international symbol of the new resurgent India seem like a joke when you arrive in that airport. They are building a new airport I was told but a city that hosts the new infotech giants seems to be taking a rather long time in getting its act together!

Outside, the narrow streets of Bangalore choking with traffic and blaring horns and unfinished fly-over close to the airport is in sharp contrast with its bright shops selling top international brands. We were staying on Brigade road off the famous MG Road. The row of shops selling computers and latest infotech gadgets, and the swanky malls seem out of the first world, squeezed in the third world of old poor India. Below is a view of Brigade road.
The traditional medicine meeting organised in collaboration with People's International Health University and Ayurvedic medical college of Bangalore had participants from Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. It was very interesting and provided an opportunity for reflecting on the dominance of western thought that relegates everything else to "old, traditional, indigenous". That ancient wisdom of milleniums that have resulted in systems of medicines like ayurveda, yunnani and sidha, are forced to "prove" themselves "scientifically" is a sign of that dominance. The picture below is from a visit to the Ayurvedic medical college of Bangalore.
Naturally we found time to go around the city for some tourist visit. The old palace of Tipu sultan completed in 1791 is beautiful with its dark browns and mahagony.
On the last day, on my way to the airport, Krishna, our driver, insisted on taking me to the Shiv temple next to the Kids Kemp shopping centre. The giant statues of Ganesh and Shiv in this temple are very imposing.
Visiting Bangalore was also an opporunity to visit family - Bukul, her husband Tony and their daughter, Ariel, as can be seen from the two pictures below.

On 19th, I flew to delhi. I had some work but mostly these days in Delhi are for family reunions. Kuldip ji and Manjit ji, our daughter in law, Atam's parents came to Delhi especially to meet me.
In Delhi, my joy is Mika, my young niece. I love spending hours with her. In the picture below, Mika is getting ready for a school function.
Delhi is the new home of Luca and his wife Polly. Luca is my old friend Enrico's son and has come here recently. So it was natural that to visit him and to check if everything was ok for their settling down.
Om Thanvi, editor of the Hindi newspaper Jansatta invited me to his home for a party, introducing me to his other guests as "he runs a webzine call Kalpana". Surrounded by his literary friends, I felt as if I was playing a new role, used as I am to be seen as a doctor! It was a lovely evening with wonderful Rajasthani vegetarian food cooked by his wife Premlata. In the pictures below Om with a small part of his huge DVD collection and two of the guests (Renuka Vishwanathan and Madhu Kishwar).

Finally I saw the new central park in Connaught Place. The new metro station of Rajiv Chowk has been completed and all the "work in progress" boards have been taken off, replaced by green lawns and flowing water. There was a beautiful exhibition showing off the changes in C.P.

The Smart Night brought colourful psychedelic lights, giant film screens, dances, drums, acrobats and high decible pop music to the square, creating a wonderful contrast with the old buildings surrounding the square. The beginning of the show with Kay Rush, the half Italian half Japanese TV show girl, appearing at the top of one of the giant screens, with her huge image on the same screen was an explanation of the theme of the event - exploring the different metro-communication languages.

The flying acrobats with colourful skirts, appeared next, flying in the sky, throwing strange shadows on the walls of the old palace, doing song and music routines from some famous films, dancing in front of the giant screens showing the strange art world of Escher.
Then it was the turn of singer l'Aura. She has a real nice voice and a very distinct style of singing. Lovely.
Then Piero Pelu, one of the famous Italian pop stars appeared, joing Kay Rush on the stage as a presenter.

And then it was the turn of the mermaids. They had fixed transparent tubs shaped like champagne glasses, filled with water in front of the cathedral. Three girls in swim suits appeared, did some synchronised dancing and then jumped inside the tubs to become the mermaids. All the while the upcoming young piano star Giovanni Allevi played wonderful piano. It was like a dream, though with the cold night and temperatures of around 3 or 4 C°, it reminded me of the Mumbai film heroines who stoically go through dances and songs among snow covered mountains, dressed in the skimpiest of clothes. From the vapours rising from the girls' bodies, I think that the water was quite warm, still it must have been strange to take bath in the shivering cold in one of the oldest squares of Italy!

Delhi was hardly there in the mumbai films, except for that passing shot in front of India Gate or South Block with the rashtrapati bhavan in the background. As someone had cribbed after watching Kal Ho Na Ho, films do tend to distort the geography of cities, and if New York could not escape it, how could Delhi do it! The films are such that you would think that India Gate and Red Fort are close to each other and next to the railway station and the airport, so that if you come to Delhi, you can't avoid passing in front of them.

This year, I have already seen 4 Hindi films where hamari Dilli plays a key role, and the year is not yet over. Perhaps, in 2006 there were other films too, that were based in Delhi, that I have missed. The question I am asking is, which of these films reflected the real spirit of Delhi?

It started with Rang de Basanti. In RDB, India Gate was not just a distant shot seen from the windows of the passing car or autorickshaw but it played an important role in a crucial scene along with the spacious bunglows of the ministers, not too far from it. It was essentially a south Delhi kind of Delhi in RDB, where upper middle class lives. There were a few scenes of old Delhi and the muslim culture but they were more like cameos and didn't affect the overall voice and texture of the film, that remained essentially south Delhi. I felt that, Aamir Khan as the sikh son of a dhaba-owner and his disgruntled companions, suceeded in giving life to the growing up experience in Delhi, I could identify with it. Its language, ambience, people were the kind you find in Delhi.


Then came Fanaa, another Aamir Khan starrer. Here Delhi was just an interlude, a background to the shairo-shayari and songs. The film highlighted the touristy part of Delhi. It skimmed superficially over Delhi, not really trying to look at the life of the city. Inspite of the luminous Kajol, I felt that it was a synthetic make-believe world, not really reflecting anything real about the city or its people.


The third film that I saw was Khosla ka Ghosla. It was a more a west Delhi kind of ambience, people who usually live in Punjabi Bagh or Rajouri Garden. It was also very real. The way neighbours reacted, the way people talked and went around their lives, it was able to catch the spirit of dilliwallas. There was a part of the film dealing with Mandi house and Bhartiya Kala Kendra part of Delhi, the part involving theatre-wallas. This part was slightly less real in the way the two main actors behaved (Navin Nischol and Tara Sharma), but even in these scenes, all the side actors were very dilliwallas. KKG was also quite enjoyable in a Gulzaar-Hrikeksh Mukherjee kind of way, that was refreshing.


Finally the last Delhi-based film that I saw was Ahista Ahista. It was mainly an old Delhi, Chandni Chowk kind of Delhi, around Jama Masjid, Dariyaganj and Red Fort. At times the way the actors (Abhay deol and Soha Ali Khan) walked effortlessly from Red Fort to Niajammuddin or to Qutab Minaar did jarr a bit but overall, the ambience of narrow streets and the muslim culture was quite real. However, the film was marred by the actors, their way of speaking, their general way of behaving, that seemed false and out of place in Chandni Chowk. Abhay Deol is a nice looking guy, reminding me of Dharmendra in vintage films like Bandini, but he did not look like or act like old Delhi person. His dialogues did not ring of old Delhi, they seemed very Mumbaiwalla. His other friends, they seemed as if they had come out of the TV serial Nukkad, falsely nice and synthetic. This does not mean that film was very bad, but in my opinion, it could not catch the spirit of Delhi.


So which of these films did catch the dil of Dilli? I think that the real competition is between RDB and KKG. Ahista Ahista and Fanaa were not about real Delhi. I can't decide between RDB and KKG.

It is difficult to decide, perhaps because the two films look at very different parts, people and cultures of Delhi. These two Delhis are quite similar geographically and do overlap, though obviously RDB is not about everyday places and persons (like the shots behind the airport or the shots at the old monuments, the scenes at India Gate and All India radio), while KKG is about everyday middle class Delhi. On just this basis, perhaps KKG wins for me.

And for you?