Delhi: sailing into chaos
The aircraft is approaching the runway. I think it is three o'clock, local time. As is slipping down gently and let, watch the city lights. I have the fleeting impression, sudden, that they are the same lights that left hours ago.
With my engineering basics I can not guarantee that the vibration, the frequency and the intensity of those lamps were different from ours. But I do remember the feeling of surprise that left me…
We first approached the India, no programs or reserves; at daybreak. That mix made me feel that we were in a different world, far from what we had for known. What I was looking after, Uploaded by rickshaw, way to the area Pahar Ganj (a neighborhood of Delhi), I would greatly facilitate the landing. The number of people sleeping in the medium, roadsides and other infrastructure, I do remember what my father told me about the fifties in Madrid:
On hot nights, apparently, neighbors out by the Paseo de Recoletos, mattress on hand, to spend the nochecita; in the middle of the boulevard. Sure!, is not the same as a night in Delhi. But I think the mind needs references.
We first approached to India, no programs or reserves; at daybreak. That mix made me feel that we were in a different world
Urbanism here I've written elsewhere- it makes little sense. In fact, Town planning, National Plan, Rehabilitation Project… for now they are still more than utopias in India; and forgive those who may take the hint. Taking into account a country-continent like this, with a monsoon you can not see, too many people per square meter, many races, excessive economic inequality, etc., Rather than have plans! And what if they do! Improvisation is a strong, and navigate the chaos.
The buildings seem, when you look out from any terrace, they are there as part of the jungle. Flocks of birds of all sizes fly and circumambulate these structures. By way of ruins the Jungle Book, and buildings are, planted, returning the perception of the passage of time.
The buildings seem, when you look out from any terrace, they are there as part of the jungle
Tour Main Bazar (Main Street Pahar Ganj) evening, is a show worthy of a documentary. If New York is the city that never sleeps, Delhi is the city that never stops working. You can find: loading some types do not know what else, bagged, to get them on a scaffold above a house. The usual cows. A vecino insomne Subido placed in a, trying to cut through the tangle of wires that surround. Think: Today everything is burned! Typical santón that reminds you to visit the Holy Temple that, You know that! Door open Himalaya Hotel to see if they have room and you hit one leñazo a poor boy who was throwing a nap; passing, wake up every row that follow…
If New York is the city that never sleeps, Delhi is the city that never stops working
You get in an alley, darker than a mole's burrow, grabbing vines seem to cables and ,suddenly, you are enlightened - yes illuminated!- per thousand watts of light which seems a fair truck The Chochona, and is nothing more than a small hotel right portal breaded, a receptionist immutable, you take a log book the size of a codex.
In order, things of the world's oldest culture.
Comments (3)
Javier Brandoli
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I remember my arrival in Delhi Nuvea, I remember feeling very similar. It is the only place that I have come that I felt the first time will run out of the chaos. It was seven o'clock, were very hot and waiting for a friend at the corner of Main Bazar with Train Station surrounded by a swarm of living indecipherable to me at that time. I wrote a story here that I think that experience is very similar to yours. Please go back to remember that wonderful chaos that eventually catch. Now I want to return.
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Israel
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«(…)rodeado de un enjambre de vida indescifrable para mí en aquel momento». A shared sense also.
Greetings.
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José Ignacio García Robres
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A hard punch in the stomach and head. That's my memory of the tremendous heat, whip mode, I felt to reach that distant Delhi in July 1995 and now I've agreed to read your little chronic. I still relive uneasily. Never before in the Indian capital have had that feeling of suffocation, even in Egypt, where I went a few years later. Cattle, Camels, mules, monkeys…a real zoo walking route mingled in my modest way of the hotel where I stayed several days. In Delhi saw that hell exists: Chadni Chowk está en, a neighborhood storefront merchant misery would see in other parts of India. Y es que la «espiritualidad» de este subcontinente de la que hablan algunos sólo la encontré en muy pequeñas dosis…but that's another story
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