Delhi’s Underbelly

The train was late out of Gwalior, an experience I expect I will get used to in India.  So many people and all of them have somewhere they are trying to go.  We had spent the morning roaming the city of Gwalior in the shadow of the fort.  In the city’s palace there was a wealth of treasures from throughout the country and the world.  There was a room of cut glass mirrored funrature, intricately carved 8 foot dragon lanterns, a marble sculpture of a woman making passionate love to a goose (?) and more ivory figurines than you can shake a stick at.  It is in stark contrast to the abject poverty I’ve been seeing here, but the museum is hardly well maintained.  The highlight was the ball room where two 40 foot crystal chandeliers hung overhead.  Apparently they used 10 elephants to weight test the roof before installation.  That is a sight I would like to have seen.

The rest of the city is dusty and tourist free, but we’re off to Dehli by train this afternoon to rub shoulders with the 14 million plus that roam the streets.  We arrive to the station early to give us time to haggle with the station master about our waitlisted seats, but the train is running a couple hours behind.  We won’t be off until after 9 which will put us into Dehli late and we have no reservations for accomodation there.

At the station we are the entertainment.  We play cribbage and take two on the floor of the platform and a crowd forms around us. A woman flatout tells Jacob to give her his jacket over and over again, laughing but not laughing at the same time.  A young man who is learning English pesters us with question after question while Matt, who knows a fair amount of Hindi, tell everyone he is from Goa.

Everywhere we go all eyes are on us.  In town a creepy man followed us around for several blocks, limping along 20 feet back. We darted across a busy street to lose him, but we’re never alone here.  Even in the rooms at night I feel like somehow, somewhere, someone is watching.

Finally the train and then finally Delhi.  We are met by the rickshaw army and settle with a man who promises to take us to his friend’s hotel.  So many friends in India.  The street that he drives us down looks like the set of The Temple of Doom after shooting has wrapped for the day.  Dark neon signs and doors closed to the road where small bands of vagarants mingle and merge to follow us to wherever it is that we are headed.

The driver’s friend’s hotel is booked full and he takes us to place after place with no luck.  Fed up we cut him loose and trek out alone in the night to find lodging.  It is about 1 a.m. and we’ve been packed into a train all evening.  We need sleep. 

A dusty bearded con-man pulls us from the mess of other dusty con-men and takes us to his friend’s hotel down a dark side street.  We laugh with each other to break the tension.  This is a bad place to be wandering about at night no doubt, but we are 3 well nourished Americans standing a head taller than the crowd, so we follow.  When it, too, is booked full the bearded man tries to take us down an even darker, littler alleyway.  No deal.

We are going door to door now.  The places that are not full are too too overpriced.  Each time we leave a hotel a throng of men try to get us to go to their hotel down this or that street. “5 minute walk, 5 minute walk.”  At every stop the hotel owners wake up from cots in the lobby and groggily tell us the rates.  They are not in the mood for bartering. 

We have 3 simple requests: a showerhead with hot water, a western toilet, and clean sheets.  Not a single place passes the test, but it reaches the point where we have amassed about 20 seedy characters lurking outside to wait for our exit.  How is it that so many people are in the lodging business?

My stomach is bottoming out.  The train curry was a bad idea.  We are desperate and don’t want to face the crowd again, not afraid, but tired of dealing with so many hands in our faces.  Being in Delhi means breathing in Delhi, too. My lungs ache.

We settle at a place that gives us a deal for staying 2 nights.  It’s worth the money to not have to go back out into the street.  We hike our bags up to the cramped little room and I trot the passports back down for check-in.  The man who is running the show is a mustacheod little weasel.  We had to wait about 10 minutes for him to slurp up his curry and verbally abuse the bearded man about something in Hindi.  He was vile and exemplified the kind of huckster that I swore I would avoid after Agra.

He wants to keep the passports until the monring in a cluttered little drawer at the desk.  I tell him that is not an option.  He says we have no choice.  It is 2 a.m. and I am tired of fighting, so I bring Matt down with me to see if some Hindi can set the man straight.  There is now some commotion out front and the bearded man has gotten into a scuffle with the affeminate little boy that works at our hotel.  The weasel is drawn out and the boy runs upstairs to bring out another man from his slumber lodge.  This guy is wearing a tight little blue shirt over his paunchy stomach.  His hair is slicked back and he stinks of musk and sweat.

They all go outside and yell at one another for a while and paunchy blue gets in a car and violently moves it from one side of the street to the other.  There is a crunch.  Something has been hit.  Our weasel scampers back in pissed and disappears into a back room for a while before slinking back up to the counter in a tantrum.  Another smiling fellow walks up and tries to console him in Hindi.  Mustache gestures at us angrily and I take the opportunity to demand our passports back.  The new guy smiles wryly at me and says that we must pay for the rooms up front to get the passports back.  I slam the cash on the table and he laughs.  We all watch the owner struggle to transcribe the numbers and letters into his little log book and then we retire to our dirty beds, sick and tired of slimy Delhi after dark.