Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Delhi Day 3

Old Delhi is all small winding streets, a true bazaar. Each alley or section of street is full of tiny shops selling the same things as their neighbors. Coils of strip metal, stationery, bearings, springs, tassels, handles & knobs, metal pipes, etc. It is quite the opposite of the American tendency to spread away from your competitors unless you intend on taking their customers. These groupings of same shops makes sense for a time and place without uniform addresses with consecutive numbering. I've heard that sometimes multiple separate shops are owned by the same person so they work together to get you what you're looking for. While we are in old Delhi, school kids are getting out of class and riding 6 or 8 packed into a cycle rickshaw, all matching uniforms and with their backpacks hanging from hooks, clustered on the back. One student followed us awhile, chatting with Zaq and later forcing upon me a gift of 10 rupees which surprises and confuses me because my experience has only been that kids ask for money and pens from me.

After lunch at the famous Karim's (claiming roots in Mughal times- amazing naan and curries), we head across town on the Metro (very clean and cheap, jam packed at rush hour) to the Indira Gandhi Memorial. We have to walk 15 minutes through some of the wide residential tree-lined streets of walled compounds set back from the street. Indira Gandhi (the daughter of Nehru who is not related to Mahatma Gandhi), the first female Prime Minister of India, was assassinated at her home. It is now a nice memorial, filled with keepsakes and photos for visitors to view, including the clothes she and her son were wearing when each were (at separate times) assassinated.

A few minutes away is the Mahatma Gandhi memorial at the place where he was assassinated. The bottom floor of the building is full of various detailed accounts of the day he died. My favorite describes him as having just returned from Calcutta where he was "dispelling hate with love", as if it were his job. I guess it sort of was.

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