Ash and Lil do INDIA! Part 1 - Namaste

Lil and I arrived in New Delhi at 1 a.m. this morning. On the drive in, we saw big men in camouflage gear with machine guns, lonely limping dogs on the sides of the dark highway, and lots of flashing lights in trees, fountains, and on the backs of cars whose drivers honk every time they overtake, as if the cars are talking to each other.

We are staying at the Bloomrooms Hotel, which means we are now “blooming across India.” As we check in, there are strange men lurking in the streets and in the lobby and everywhere you look. I am not sure what they are doing, but they seem to know. They like to stare at us, especially Lil, who is tall and blond and Amazonian. I find myself frequently making eye contact with soft, curious brown eyes like those of cows—of which I have not, as yet, encountered.

Absolutely no one speaks English, as I think with the English banished they have reverted to their 3000-odd dialects. They pretend they can speak English, however, and are skilled at averting questions that might show them to be fraudsters. Our check-in takes forever, as even though there is a small man dressed in a mustard jacket at the desk, we have to do our own check-in online, scan QR codes, and surrender passports as if spending the rest of our lives in India might be our secret intention.

In the morning we go to breakfast. Charley was outraged when I mentioned I might loosen up on my oil-free diet. “How dare you,” he fumed, “when you have put us all through misery demanding oil-free food so hot waitresses think not only are we out with our mother but she’s weird.” He then said it would be churlish of me to break my code of oillessness without some sort of celebration, as if I were some Carmelite nun about to speak again. “Anyway, Mum,” he said to me, finally, “Gandhi fasted for 21 days and you’re only going to be in India for 15.”

On our first morning in India, we are sitting at breakfast in our Bloomrooms Hotel. A tall, dark, swarthy Indian who looks like a forest dweller comes in, stares straight into my eyes, and tells me my eyes speak. He says New Zealand is a rocking country with a young girl Prime Minister and big rugby players that make you want to run for shelter—and they do a dance, he adds.

As the first English-speaking Indian I have encountered, I ask him if my steamed breakfast cakes are made of rice or flour, and he says, “Don’t speak—you’ll get food in your windpipe.” He then asks, “How come you are so alive? What are you, 60? Here, at your age, they sit quietly and stop having bubbles of life.” He tells Lil and me that all his parents want is for him to marry, as if he is the last descendant of the dinosaur, but life is so transient. Lil says, “You mean live for the moment,” and he looks into her eyes and says, “Aah, you put it in so few words.”

He asks to sit with us, saying that in his country it’s so difficult to talk to two ladies, when a large frizzy-haired girl sitting at another table who whitens her skin tells him to stop speaking rubbish, as she works in films and comes from Mumbai. He says, “Aah, but you are a strong girl.”

She tells us her name is Seline and Bombay became Mumbai in 1995, when the government decided every region should be named after its culture, and then tells our forest-dwelling friend that she has to be strong, as her mother and grandmother were weak and got trodden on by their husbands. The forest dweller and the filmmaker agree there are more goddesses than gods and that the British mismanaged India.

A man at another table says there were 390 million people in India at independence. India can’t process its resources, so now can’t feed a population that has grown by 400% in 78 years. He says this to the wall he is facing, not to us, and then gets up and walks out.

Seline from Mumbai takes us across the road to a dilapidated temple where a woman sits outside depetaling flowers and a man sits cross-legged inside on a concrete ledge. She tells us the three goddesses flailing their arms around are fighting evil, being feisty, and promoting education, all while nurturing. It seems like it takes three goddesses to do the work of an ordinary woman.

Outside the dilapidated temple is the little part of Delhi where we are staying. It is as if nature has been turned into a sort of urban garden of destitution. Plastic bottles and bags that have simply been used to death lie in the dust between dusty trees and huge white pillars—reminders of a time when India was the jewel of an empire.

Against this watercolour painted with dust teem people all living in a freedom that makes our world seem caged. Tuk-tuks, bikes, trucks, carts pulled by buffaloes, and cars all scurry around in every direction like large ants, honking and calling out, and I think of our lonely vigil in our big SUVs waiting at traffic lights.

Groups of women completely covered from head to toe in simply beautiful embroidered fabrics walk quickly with their heads down. An old man sits selling shoelaces; another wanders around peeling a blue plastic bag from a roll as if he has a customer; another sweeps the dust around and around; and another warms his hands by a small tin bucket of fire.

Although there are cows, there is no smell, but it is winter.

We go back to our hotel as we are off to the Taj Mahal today. It is in Agra, three hours away. We have been assured that our driver will speak English, as there are so many questions…