Diwali in Delhi

Contemplating coffee @ Costa
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Diwali was a blast, quite literally. A Molotov cocktail of a festival: 2 parts wild abandon to 3 parts arson. Add a liberal splash of fairy lights, a dash religious fervour and you have a deadly mixture of fun with the complete absence of any of that namby-pamby health and safety nonsense. Every house is decked out like the Moulin Rouge and every child armed to the teeth with a range of high explosive devices. Even as Marlow and I made out way to the party, kids were lighting up the streets and though we were ‘Goras’, we were fair game.

Marllowe and Freya clearly after too much caffeine
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Marlowe: ‘Dude can you smell burning?’

Small children and high explosives don't mix

Me: ‘No. That last one was close though. So close it nearly blew my shirt off, but I can’t see anything’.

Marlowe: (nearly jumping out of the speeding rickshaw) Dude, my ass is one fire!

Lotus Temple, South Delhi
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Good clean fun guaranteed to bring out the little boy in all of us. We partied the night away at Mousumi’s house – one of the VSO Programme Office Staff – whose smile alone is enough to light up a city block. And so I found myself with an equally crazed Anglo-Indian collective - soon to be known as 'The South Delhi Massive' - combining ever more elaborate concoctions of rockets, cherry bombs and flares to see just how big a bang we could make without losing a limb. It was an inferno of fun. Come about eleven, the firework fever reached it zenith. It was like, each group turned inwards, looked into their small arsenal of incendiaries they had remaining, and agreed as one to go out with an almighty bang. From up on the fourth floor balcony of Mousumi’s apartment we watched the city light up. A thousand firecrackers simultaneously pinged across the road, off buildings, cars and people, a jet of sparks singed buildings, and grenade-like thuds rocked our bones. Then thick sulphurous smog closed off the night. Thanks to Ruth for the Diwali photos - she was the only person brave enough to take a camera into the battle zone.

Birds over the Lotus Temple, South Delhi
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So I had my few days’ fun in Delhi. On my way there I had managed to get the 1200kms from my apartment in Deoghar to a bar in Delhi with a beer in my hand in 11 hours. Not bad. But I had the strangest of feelings as I stepped of the last train of the return journey. I felt like I was home. The rickshaw drivers were not the snarling grouches of Delhi; they were all smiles and friendly banter. The guy who I finally agreed the ‘right’ price was equally as happy to have his strange pale-faced trophy in the back of the rickshaw as he was the 40 Rupees in his pocket. The air was clear, and the sun offered pure comforting warmth. I asked to be dropped off a half-kilometre from my apartment just so I could walk the last stretch, pick up a few supplies and enjoy the dusty familiarity of my neighbourhood. How strange is that? I would have always described myself as a city boy. I like the hustle and bustle of London, and the anonymity of a big metropolis. But here I was feeling glad to be away from the coffee bars and bazaars of Delhi and be back buying aubergines from a guy who was staring me like I’d just stepped off a five-legged donkey wearing a sombrero.

Rickshaw yoga
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The mystery of the town is starting to unravel. What seemed like a mess of cobbled-together stalls, random holes in the wall that serve as teashops and cowpat-ridden streets are unwinding and starting to make sense. Albeit, in a very Indian way. And everyday life is doing the same. When I first arrived, the bewildering thing is that there seems to be no system. There are no street signs, traffic signals, no prices in shops, no set opening hours and all that seemed to reign was chaos. But slowly, oh so slowly, I’ve come to realise that there is a system. It’s just not written down anywhere, but it exists in a far more pervasive way - in the hearts and minds of the people who live here.

BEWARE - Lemination is practiced here
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Whilst trying to book a train one of the girls in the office was helping me sort out the schedule:

‘I can get this train, right? It means I can connect with the one to Delhi.’

‘No, that train will not get you there in time.’

‘But the timetable says it will get me there with an hour to spare.’

Wobbly tree
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‘Ah, but that is just what is written.’

The point being that everyone in Deoghar knows the train is always 2 hours late. It may be written that it arrives at 10am, but it doesn’t. And because everyone knows that there’s no real need to change the timetable – simple right?

Everything has its price. That’s not to say everything is for sale, but most things have a commonly agreed value. A cycle rickshaw from the Town Gate to the central market is 8 Rupees. It just is. Everyone knows this, and so bargaining is only really to be done if your luggage happens to be a 50Kg bag of potatoes. All that is required is that you know this to be true (I always pay Rs.10 because I can’t bare asking for change from 10 Rupee note when some bloke as just half killed himself cycling up a hill with me in tow).

More seats upstairs
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A singlah (samosa) is 2 Rupees. There must be 20 little roadside stalls that sell them, and they are all priced the same. And seeing as singlahs and dahl are pretty much the only food that you can buy at any stall, why have a price list? The same goes for other ‘staple’ goods. As I found out, a big blanket is 400 Rupees. The nights are a little chilly now, so I needed something more substantial to sleep under. I asked the guys at work how much a blanket would cost and they carefully explained the pricing system. I small blanket is about 300, a bigger one four to five hundred and if you want one ‘fluffy like a teddy bear’ it could be up to 800. The first blanket the ‘blanket man’ showed me was just about big enough to cover a double bed, and quite ‘fluffy like a teddy bear’, though not fully teddy-bearish. When I asked if he had one bigger, he confidently assured me that the one he’d shown me would easily sleep 3 people under it. I walked away with a blanket one size up, and I think he still has is curious where I am going to find 3 friends to make best use of it.

Always a smile
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Time and places are equally buried in the collective unconscious of the town. A typical conversation I have with my work colleagues to arrange a meeting goes something like this:

Me: ‘Can we set up a meeting?’

‘Sure’, says my colleague

‘OK, when? Tomorrow?’

Slick wheels
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‘Yes, tomorrow.’

‘Are you here tomorrow?’

‘No.’

Deep breath, ‘right, well about the day after? Wednesday?’

Doing the weekly shop
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‘Yes, I can meet you then.’

‘OK, when?’

Quizzical look on an Indian furrowed brow. ‘Wednesday.’

‘Yeah, I know Wednesday, but when?’

The spud man, at the spud market
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‘Oh.’ Still slightly confused, but humouring me, ‘how about the second half?’

‘Sure, when in the second half?’

More face scrunching. ‘After lunch.’

‘What time do you have your lunch?’

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Clearly a silly question, as everyone knows what time lunch is, (but still he is English), ‘About 2 or 3’

‘So when would be after lunch?’

‘About 3 or 4.’

This is as close as I ever get. But, by some miracle of cosmic alignment, we always seem to get together. The system works, and everyone gets to meet with everyone else at some time and stuff gets done on time. It just seems a little random to start with.

Freaky Stylie
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Directions are equally expansive in their ambiguity. This, I think, is based on the fact that if you don’t know where some thing is, you really shouldn’t be going there. So asking is a bit of a non-starter. If you do get a helpful soul, the best you can hope for is a wide sweeping hand gesture that covers approximately 180 degrees of the surrounding vista. So at least you know you’re not going in the completely the wrong direction. There’s no point trying to get all specific about things: One of the guys at work pointed out a hill as we stood on his balcony explaining that this was a very beautiful place and I should definitely visit it. I asked how would one get there? The answer of course…on a road. I think I’ll just get him to take me.

The local cobbler's shop
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Other delights: the ‘Namourai!’ thing is getting a bit out of control. I can’t take more than a few steps in the market without someone shouting it out to me, to which I generally have to reciprocate with a touch of my forehead in a half-salute, half-wave gesture - a kind of quick version of the full two-handed greeting where your palms are pressed together and then bow your head to meet the tips of your fingers. But it does the trick and people smile and invite me into their shops, force-feed me treats so sweet they make your teeth squeak and then ask me whether I support England or India in the cricket. And rather handily for me, getting your picture taken by me has now become somewhat of a sport. I have shopkeepers vying for the chance to strike the most dramatic of poses that could grace the cover of Teashop Weekly, or Bangle Today.

What on earth is INDRAJAL?
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However, nothing has to the power to dissolve the most serious scrutinising stare into a smile as a well executed head wobble. During a conversation, a small head-tilt to one side signals general agreement. A full side-to-side wobble is thank you, hello, goodbye and just about anything else friendly. Still, being English I tend to say thank you as well, which generally results in total bemusement. Only airport announcers say thank you. However, the double or even triple wobble, with accompanying grin works miracles. So I find myself wibbling and wobbling around the town, to shouts of ‘Namourai’ and generally saluting everything that moves including the cows. And I shall continue. I fear that if I were to stop my elaborate dance of ingratiation, in accordance with local signage, I would be at the mercy of the Great A. Lal’s Indrajal or face being Leminated. Neither of which I want to get any more familiar with.