Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
New Delhi Nasir Part 2
I can still hear Nasir instructions to “walk straight about two kilometers on this road” and my brain registers the small number two. “Okay, how far can two kilometers be?” I think back to the lack of a surprised on Nasir’s face that this Westerner wanted to walk the distance. With 40-plus years of being in the world of feet, yards and mile measurement my brain simply won’t think in terms of meters, so I’m left to my own ignorance and begin a walk the distance. I think back to the decade or so that my family lived in West Germany, when we would purposely set out to do just that, walk, even in the cold and sometimes in the rain. Just walk, for no other reason than to simply walk, which is easy to do when you’re a healthy youngster calculating nothing except for how many more days you have until you have to go back to school.
I didn’t mind so much then but it’s different today. I’ve been walking for some time up and down the raised sidewalks, which I can only assume are constructed to keep people out of the watery streets during the monsoons. I’m thinking many things while walking as I make the naïve assumption that it’s going to be easy to keep my fitness program up with lots of walking and stepping up and down from sidewalks to streets. I’m about to be faced with some amazing truths about a journey that requires both a strong body and even stronger mind.
It’s my first time in Delhi so I don’t know how much attention I should get from taxi, touk touk or bike rickshaw drivers, but now I’m begging for the attention. I must have walked a half-mile and I have yet to see the India Gate, which is an memorial arch as prominent as the Arc de Triomphe and larger than the one in New York City’s Washington Square. A touk touk (motorize rickshaw) driver looking for tourists, like the fisherman scans the water seeking his catch, sees me and jettisons his little yellow and green chariot towards me. He outlines the parked cars as he keeps pace with me an with a strong voice carrying over the honking horns he asks, “Ma’am, where you go? You want to see India Gate?” I respond only in my mind, still guarded from a new culture I’ll soon have to embrace, “Oh yes, I want very much to rest this heavy load in the sallow vinyl sofa-seat of your rickshaw.” I brought all my valuables with me heeding the advice of an Arabic Sage who says, “Love Allah, but tie your camel.” The hotel clerk only gave me a heavy padlock with one key on a chain, certain that they held its clone. I’ve got laptop and all my valuable electronics packed into the small backpack. It may be small but it’s heavy and I would welcome some relief.
I motion for the driver to draw near so I can learn what it will cost to travel in the comfort and style of this motorcycle turned mini taxi. We agree that he would take me to the India Gate and back to the hotel for seventy rupees, which seems very fair to this tired, visually stimulated and excited voyager. We make our way to the arch, which I’m get several glimpses of as we motor up the very broad, modern and busy boulevard. I learned quickly that my driver speaks enough English for us to communicate. Raj, a name as common as Robert in the States, is married with one child and has completed his undergraduate studies, which he explains is of little value in India. A person must have a Masters or Doctorate to get the highly desired posts. Raj parks with the other rickshaw drivers on hire and instructs me to take my time. “Take lots of photos and I will be here waiting when you return.” His assertion is reassuring and I want so much to trust my blessed chauffeur. I haven’t given him any rupees as yet, which adds to my confidence that he’ll be there when I return. I use the crosswalk to negotiate the busy boulevard. While I wait for signal to change I think about Raj’s lovely demeanor, which gives begins to build the emotional evidence that this journey is right for me. As I cross the street to this powerful structure that honors the memory of 90,000 soldiers who lost their lives fighting for the British, the very people that would oppress them. I declare that this too is my threshold, my door and my gate to India.
I’m the warrior battling my ego and any leftover experiences that need to be forgiven. I walk around the powerful terracotta structure, a symbol of honor and in some respects; forgiveness. I can see a light in the Amar Jawan Jyoti, the flame of the immortal warrior under the arch and it reflections in the eyes of those around me. I am confident that I am exactly where I must be.
I walk looking up at the tall structure unaware of the many eyes on me until a tall Indian man in his 20s asks if he could have his picture taken with me. It was obvious to me that he assumed I would agree because his friend had ready composed the shot from ten feet away. The young man thanked me with a huge smile, rejoined his friend and they walked away with such excitement you’d think he just took a picture with world-famous Cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar.
I took my time walking gently with reverence around the monument breathing in this new culture and its people. For the first time in my life I felt oddly alone in a vast crowd. I was such a minority--this strange fair-skinned woman with short grey hair in a sea of dark-skinned women with long dark black tresses—and the curiosity about me could have killed a tiger.
I said a silent farewell to the gate and returned to the dirt-parking lot with more than twenty rickshaws and drivers who all looked like Raj. Yet, as soon as he spotted his Westerner in her jeans and bright t-shirt he began to wave. I got back into my tiny chariot and we returned to my hotel in enough time to catch my train to Chardigarh.
I folded my wings for nine days in Panchkula with my gracious hosts making all the social, emotional and verbal mistakes I could before being divinely pushed out of the nest.
Knowing I had a familiar face to welcome me back to Delhi gave me a sense of confidence. Nasir crabbing me and my luggage and cut a sharp but narrow path through the crowd of both tight and loosely wrapped turbans of the men in the train station, all whom desperately want me as their customer or victim of their scheme. We were walking so fast I thought we committed some crime and attempting to leave the scene without being detected. More drivers aggressively approached but my tall slender friend deflected them as if he was Neo in the Matrix and they were Agents.
As I follow him I realized that he obviously received my Facebook email telling him I was returning to Delhi. He’s still in front of me and begins his interrogation. It takes a certain awareness of the Indian male culture to not be provoked by this kind of cross-examination. I had to realize that Nasir isn’t aware that he is behaving inappropriate according to my culture. He says, “Trassee, why you not give me your train number and train name? I ask for it on Facebook but you no reply? You know how long I wait for you? I come to station at eleven o’clock and you not come for one o’clock!” I say nothing until his questions ease and then begin with an apology and explain, “I didn’t get online again after I emailed you. I didn’t expect or ask you to meet my train.” Without knowing that I was quickly opening a can of worms that would never go back to their dark resting place, he overpoweringly asked, “Why you not think I come to see you?” I said, “Nasir, let’s leave it.” He taught me about the importance of leaving a topic during my last visit. I said, “I’m here now and I know to give you the train name and number for the next time. But I was certain that there wouldn’t be a next time. He wasn’t ready to leave it as he pulled out a small white ticket that had been stamped with a time that he would have to leave the platform of get a huge fine. He explained to me that Indians not holding a train ticket are not allowed in the station and the only way to enter was to pay a small fee for a kind of ‘platform pass’. Had the police checked his the time on his pass and discover that it had expired he would have to pay a hefty fine of 100 to 200 rupees. Now that has pleaded his case he was ready to leave it.
He told me, versus inviting me, that I was to have lunch with his family. He had called his mother and told her to prepare lunch for us and his other friend, which had been with us the entire time but I just thought he was simply someone walking in the same direction remaining in our non-existent personal space. He hired a motor rickshaw and literally threw my bag into the small space behind the back seat and the three of us squeezed in. His friend was more out than in and on his cell phone throughout the entire twenty-minute journey. I swear only Indians are able to carry on phone conversations on the boisterously loud streets. My Western ears aren’t able to differentiate the multitudes of sounds from a caller’s voice to have a coherent phone conversation but I’m thinking that when I have a cell phone I may have to adapt the necessary talent within my ears.
Nasir asked me how long I would be in Delhi and seemed excited to get to know his American friend more. I was tried to conceal my excitement about the next leg of my journey. ‘I need to be back at the station at five o’clock to get the night train to Varanasi” I told him with an instructional tone. I was happy that my first journey outside the safety and comfort of my ‘home base’ was going to be the most spiritual city in India. Nasir was disappointed and changed the subject as he asked, “Trassee, when will you go to Kashmir with me?” Not wanting to offend my gracious host, I just patted him on the arm and said “Later, after I’ve seen more of India.” He seemed to be satisfied and said, “When we go to my house I show you picture of Kashmir.” I nodded in agreement.
I asked him if he knew of a place that would give me a ‘pre-paid’ cell phone. He said, “Yes, I take you for that after we have lunch.” He then laced his fingers in mine and looked at me romantically and said, “Trassee, did you miss me?” I pulled away quickly and said, “Nasir, friends only, no romance, okay?” He looked away and with the most insincere pout, “I have emotions of love for you.” I now know I about to get a hefty cultural lesson. He continued his subtle innuendos so I laid down the law by saying, “I don’t come here for romance! We can only ever be friends and if you can’t handle that I’ll have to turn around and find my own way back to the train station.” He said, “Okay, okay, Trassee, but you not feel love for me?” He’s so not getting the point. I ask him, remembering the gigolos I meet in Kathmandu, “Nasir are you a gigolo?” He sincerely didn’t know what I was asking so I said, “Do you think I come here, lonely and looking for young men to have sex with?” I continued my own interrogation, “Is that what you’re hoping for; to find an older foreign woman to hook up with and get a visa to America?” He laughed and said, “Why not? No, I joke. You want only friend, then we be friends only. Tell me truth Trassee, you didn’t think of me once when you leave Delhi?” I looked at him as if a very angry mother, “Nasir, leave it!” We did.
I’m relived that I’ll leave this evening after this conversation but I’m slightly concerned that he’ll won’t get me back to the train station in time since he’s suggested I stay one or two days with him and his family. I will eat lunch, see the pictures of Kashmir and insist that he get me to the shopping area for a cell phone and back to the station to catch my train.
I didn’t mind so much then but it’s different today. I’ve been walking for some time up and down the raised sidewalks, which I can only assume are constructed to keep people out of the watery streets during the monsoons. I’m thinking many things while walking as I make the naïve assumption that it’s going to be easy to keep my fitness program up with lots of walking and stepping up and down from sidewalks to streets. I’m about to be faced with some amazing truths about a journey that requires both a strong body and even stronger mind.
It’s my first time in Delhi so I don’t know how much attention I should get from taxi, touk touk or bike rickshaw drivers, but now I’m begging for the attention. I must have walked a half-mile and I have yet to see the India Gate, which is an memorial arch as prominent as the Arc de Triomphe and larger than the one in New York City’s Washington Square. A touk touk (motorize rickshaw) driver looking for tourists, like the fisherman scans the water seeking his catch, sees me and jettisons his little yellow and green chariot towards me. He outlines the parked cars as he keeps pace with me an with a strong voice carrying over the honking horns he asks, “Ma’am, where you go? You want to see India Gate?” I respond only in my mind, still guarded from a new culture I’ll soon have to embrace, “Oh yes, I want very much to rest this heavy load in the sallow vinyl sofa-seat of your rickshaw.” I brought all my valuables with me heeding the advice of an Arabic Sage who says, “Love Allah, but tie your camel.” The hotel clerk only gave me a heavy padlock with one key on a chain, certain that they held its clone. I’ve got laptop and all my valuable electronics packed into the small backpack. It may be small but it’s heavy and I would welcome some relief.
I motion for the driver to draw near so I can learn what it will cost to travel in the comfort and style of this motorcycle turned mini taxi. We agree that he would take me to the India Gate and back to the hotel for seventy rupees, which seems very fair to this tired, visually stimulated and excited voyager. We make our way to the arch, which I’m get several glimpses of as we motor up the very broad, modern and busy boulevard. I learned quickly that my driver speaks enough English for us to communicate. Raj, a name as common as Robert in the States, is married with one child and has completed his undergraduate studies, which he explains is of little value in India. A person must have a Masters or Doctorate to get the highly desired posts. Raj parks with the other rickshaw drivers on hire and instructs me to take my time. “Take lots of photos and I will be here waiting when you return.” His assertion is reassuring and I want so much to trust my blessed chauffeur. I haven’t given him any rupees as yet, which adds to my confidence that he’ll be there when I return. I use the crosswalk to negotiate the busy boulevard. While I wait for signal to change I think about Raj’s lovely demeanor, which gives begins to build the emotional evidence that this journey is right for me. As I cross the street to this powerful structure that honors the memory of 90,000 soldiers who lost their lives fighting for the British, the very people that would oppress them. I declare that this too is my threshold, my door and my gate to India.
I’m the warrior battling my ego and any leftover experiences that need to be forgiven. I walk around the powerful terracotta structure, a symbol of honor and in some respects; forgiveness. I can see a light in the Amar Jawan Jyoti, the flame of the immortal warrior under the arch and it reflections in the eyes of those around me. I am confident that I am exactly where I must be.
I walk looking up at the tall structure unaware of the many eyes on me until a tall Indian man in his 20s asks if he could have his picture taken with me. It was obvious to me that he assumed I would agree because his friend had ready composed the shot from ten feet away. The young man thanked me with a huge smile, rejoined his friend and they walked away with such excitement you’d think he just took a picture with world-famous Cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar.
I took my time walking gently with reverence around the monument breathing in this new culture and its people. For the first time in my life I felt oddly alone in a vast crowd. I was such a minority--this strange fair-skinned woman with short grey hair in a sea of dark-skinned women with long dark black tresses—and the curiosity about me could have killed a tiger.
I said a silent farewell to the gate and returned to the dirt-parking lot with more than twenty rickshaws and drivers who all looked like Raj. Yet, as soon as he spotted his Westerner in her jeans and bright t-shirt he began to wave. I got back into my tiny chariot and we returned to my hotel in enough time to catch my train to Chardigarh.
I folded my wings for nine days in Panchkula with my gracious hosts making all the social, emotional and verbal mistakes I could before being divinely pushed out of the nest.
Knowing I had a familiar face to welcome me back to Delhi gave me a sense of confidence. Nasir crabbing me and my luggage and cut a sharp but narrow path through the crowd of both tight and loosely wrapped turbans of the men in the train station, all whom desperately want me as their customer or victim of their scheme. We were walking so fast I thought we committed some crime and attempting to leave the scene without being detected. More drivers aggressively approached but my tall slender friend deflected them as if he was Neo in the Matrix and they were Agents.
As I follow him I realized that he obviously received my Facebook email telling him I was returning to Delhi. He’s still in front of me and begins his interrogation. It takes a certain awareness of the Indian male culture to not be provoked by this kind of cross-examination. I had to realize that Nasir isn’t aware that he is behaving inappropriate according to my culture. He says, “Trassee, why you not give me your train number and train name? I ask for it on Facebook but you no reply? You know how long I wait for you? I come to station at eleven o’clock and you not come for one o’clock!” I say nothing until his questions ease and then begin with an apology and explain, “I didn’t get online again after I emailed you. I didn’t expect or ask you to meet my train.” Without knowing that I was quickly opening a can of worms that would never go back to their dark resting place, he overpoweringly asked, “Why you not think I come to see you?” I said, “Nasir, let’s leave it.” He taught me about the importance of leaving a topic during my last visit. I said, “I’m here now and I know to give you the train name and number for the next time. But I was certain that there wouldn’t be a next time. He wasn’t ready to leave it as he pulled out a small white ticket that had been stamped with a time that he would have to leave the platform of get a huge fine. He explained to me that Indians not holding a train ticket are not allowed in the station and the only way to enter was to pay a small fee for a kind of ‘platform pass’. Had the police checked his the time on his pass and discover that it had expired he would have to pay a hefty fine of 100 to 200 rupees. Now that has pleaded his case he was ready to leave it.
He told me, versus inviting me, that I was to have lunch with his family. He had called his mother and told her to prepare lunch for us and his other friend, which had been with us the entire time but I just thought he was simply someone walking in the same direction remaining in our non-existent personal space. He hired a motor rickshaw and literally threw my bag into the small space behind the back seat and the three of us squeezed in. His friend was more out than in and on his cell phone throughout the entire twenty-minute journey. I swear only Indians are able to carry on phone conversations on the boisterously loud streets. My Western ears aren’t able to differentiate the multitudes of sounds from a caller’s voice to have a coherent phone conversation but I’m thinking that when I have a cell phone I may have to adapt the necessary talent within my ears.
Nasir asked me how long I would be in Delhi and seemed excited to get to know his American friend more. I was tried to conceal my excitement about the next leg of my journey. ‘I need to be back at the station at five o’clock to get the night train to Varanasi” I told him with an instructional tone. I was happy that my first journey outside the safety and comfort of my ‘home base’ was going to be the most spiritual city in India. Nasir was disappointed and changed the subject as he asked, “Trassee, when will you go to Kashmir with me?” Not wanting to offend my gracious host, I just patted him on the arm and said “Later, after I’ve seen more of India.” He seemed to be satisfied and said, “When we go to my house I show you picture of Kashmir.” I nodded in agreement.
I asked him if he knew of a place that would give me a ‘pre-paid’ cell phone. He said, “Yes, I take you for that after we have lunch.” He then laced his fingers in mine and looked at me romantically and said, “Trassee, did you miss me?” I pulled away quickly and said, “Nasir, friends only, no romance, okay?” He looked away and with the most insincere pout, “I have emotions of love for you.” I now know I about to get a hefty cultural lesson. He continued his subtle innuendos so I laid down the law by saying, “I don’t come here for romance! We can only ever be friends and if you can’t handle that I’ll have to turn around and find my own way back to the train station.” He said, “Okay, okay, Trassee, but you not feel love for me?” He’s so not getting the point. I ask him, remembering the gigolos I meet in Kathmandu, “Nasir are you a gigolo?” He sincerely didn’t know what I was asking so I said, “Do you think I come here, lonely and looking for young men to have sex with?” I continued my own interrogation, “Is that what you’re hoping for; to find an older foreign woman to hook up with and get a visa to America?” He laughed and said, “Why not? No, I joke. You want only friend, then we be friends only. Tell me truth Trassee, you didn’t think of me once when you leave Delhi?” I looked at him as if a very angry mother, “Nasir, leave it!” We did.
I’m relived that I’ll leave this evening after this conversation but I’m slightly concerned that he’ll won’t get me back to the train station in time since he’s suggested I stay one or two days with him and his family. I will eat lunch, see the pictures of Kashmir and insist that he get me to the shopping area for a cell phone and back to the station to catch my train.
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