This weekend I finally had the time to really get out of Chanakyapuri, the neighborhood filled with mostly nothing but embassies and high commissions. On Friday I met up with two also recently arrived interns of the Embassy of Sweden that is located right next to our embassy. We decided to venture and took the first time ricksha (auto-rickshaw) to get to the nearest Race Course metro station and a metro further to Khan Market in order to explore a little around. The embassy area is known to have few ricksha so the drivers accordingly raise prices, and trying to negotiate the price to its real level is not the easiest task for a foreigner, of course thought to have money. The driver insisted on 50 rupee instead of 30, which however to us was rather affordable (50 rupee = 70cents) so we hopped in.
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| A very calm Sunday traffic |
At the station we found that the metro system was a rather modern one with smart cards. To get in the metro we had to go through a security check, putting our bags in the fluoroscopy and walking through a metal detector. I missed the guardians’ sign language and tried to walk past the entrance for men and they kindly pointed me, all confused, to the other entrance where there was a lady holding a metal detector, waiting to scan me with it more thoroughly. When the metro suddenly came, we realized that we no longer had time to get to the ladies’ van we had heard to be in front of each metro, so we squeezed in. We noticed that there were practically no other women in the cart. After a couple of stops’ distance, being packed next to all the men, we tried to follow the flow to get out, and then changed into the “only women” cart for the next ride. A man carrying a child tried to get in also but he was turned away by the metro personnel. Later we heard that it is very common that men try to get into women’s cart.. Once inside the metro we noticed that women’s cart had also other strong points: We felt like royal princesses with plenty of space whereas all the men were squeezed in the following cart. Our discussion provoked some smug smiles on the faces of the Indian women.
On Saturday I was picked up by an Indian friend to have brunch in secret location. This turned out to be a cozy open-air restaurant at Lodi Garden, one of the best known parks in Delhi. The lunch served well as a complementary introduction to India, the discussion flowing from traditions to religion to politics. Referring to the current conflict between Muslims and Hindus, my friend explained that before colonial times all different religious groups used to live quite peacefully but the colonial governance deepened the classification of people according to caste and religion, drawing people more apart from each other. “What is the best way to rule a country? To divide the people”, he said.
On Saturday evening I climbed upstairs from my apartment to see my colleague. I can hardly imagine that hanging out there it would be possible to run out of topics to speak about: In a few years she’ll have 40th anniversary of working for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. During that time she’s been settled in numerous Embassies of Finland in Africa, Asia... Imagine, she was even in Egypt when the revolution broke out!
On Sunday I met up with another Finn doing internship in Delhi since several months already. He led me to a food festival and I got the first taste of real Indian food.
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Performing for money at the food festival
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| Grilled paneer (alike cottage) cheese & vegetables |
The weirdest part of the food festival was just about to follow with the “mouth refresher” called paan. For him tasting it looked so easy as he folded the leaf full of small and colorful spices, herbs, or something alike, stuck it in his mouth and started to gently chew it and slowly ooze the juice out of the content. For me, however, this was done with not a drop of majestic grace rather than stuffing something in your mouth that was not even designed to fit there. Well, when in Rome do as the Romans do, maybe better luck next time!
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| A selection of paan, mouth refresher |
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| Looking good ehh? |
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