Last weekend in Delhi

Hindi Class 2012

This week it’s been a bit of a mixture of the good and the bad. Apart from feeling tethered like a goat on a rope (quote from my buddy volunteer) still here in Delhi just waiting to go off to placement and the pace is a bit slow so a little boring. I also had a bit of a scary oppressive experience with a fellow volunteer while visiting Hazrat Nizam-ud-din dargah on Thursday night. Guide book states, ‘its one of Delhi’s extraordinary pleasures to experience the buzz around the site and hear Sufis sing qawwali at around sunset’, I would certainly contradict this statement. This shine is surrounded by dark alleyways where you have to walk bear foot in god knows what on the floor and cover your head. You get hassle by touts all the way through to buy stuff on a sacred site. Beggars grab your clothing and its pick pocket paradise, you descend into a square sounded by tomb stones with different levels of the undying/beggars littered around solely to pray off the tourists. You feel hemmed in, the atmosphere was simply morbid and heavy, I have never felt so Closter phobic in my life. Hence to say we got the hell out of their pretty quickly – Thanks lonely planet!

On the other hand Gandhi Smriti monument was a calming pleasure to wonder round at leisure trying to educate my lacking knowledge of Indian history, although their was a very weird art display on depicting Gandhi’s words in many unusual forms, a bit out their for me. Our Hindi teacher Sita jee is being very patient with us as we struggle along. Sita and her family invited us to a traditional dance performance on their new years day that her and her daughter were performing as honoured guests, it was a lovely welcoming experience. The performances were amazing so much control in the dancing, check out the video; see the dancer’s faces, feet, hand movements all at the same time. We also got to sample a south Indian feast, although we were aloud spoons, hand eating is very difficult.

Spent the day today exploring looked around the red fort that the British trashed during the empire, amazing on the outside with its huge terracotta red walls. Also went to visit a new temple built in 2005 and the largest Hindu temple in the world Akshardhan, it was busier than the Taj Mahal and amazingly sculpted. Sun was shining a bit too much, sunburnt now and tired but all in all a lovely day. I topped tonight off with some all American diner pancakes and a pint of kingfisher probably cost three days wages but was well worth it. Three weeks of curry can pay its toll on a westernised stomach. I now also have my Indian garb, so photos from now on should show of some of my new bright fashion.