New Delhi and Noida- Marita's memories

We arrived in New Delhi after a 20 hour train ride. It was a Rajdhani Express and we bought tickets in the 3-tier air conditioned class. We didn't realize that it included meals and were delighted to have a waiter show up every hour with tea, snacks, and meals.



In Delhi, we had already planned to meet a Servas host family and headed out on the bus to the suburb of Noida. Here we were the only tourists in sight and got to experience the real Indian life first hand.







Our place was at the end of a sandy street with a small park between the rows of 2-story houses. Shyamli (Shaam-Lee), a preschool teacher, lived there sometimes to take care of her elderly mother and several others rented out the other spaces of the building and helped the mother as well. Shyamli's husband, Mr. Ravindra Verma, lives in Delhi and worked as an art teacher at one of India's most prestigious private schools, called the Modern School. What we would call a private school in the USA is called a public school in India. The children are admitted at kindergarten only after they pass a test and their parents pay a huge fee to have their child accepted. Many graduates move on to places like Harvard or other top-name schools.



Across the street from our place in Noida, lived Shyamli's daughter Sueli (Shoe-Lee), a preschool teacher as well, her husband Santanu, a lawyer, and their 8-month old son. We enjoyed playing with the baby who wore a little black string around his bare waist with some charms, worn to ward off any evil. Sueli had once done an exchange program in Seattle during 1996 so we got to see some of her trip photos.



Meals were a highlight of the evenings, as we feasted on many traditional dishes of Bengal, the region where Shyamli grew up. She soon employed us in the kitchen to help chop and wash. Eating is done with the hands, although we were offered Western utensils, and everyone eats on metal plates and stores food in metal bowls.



We learned about the spices she uses and saw all the different kitchen tools. One evening we made dinner for the family- an Indian/Mexican creation of fajitas and torillas, all vegetarian. The kitchen had two gas burners and cast iron pans. We had a fun time putting it together and in the end it was actually pretty tasty! They even took out the toaster oven so we could bake bread. I made an orange cake and banana bread.



Going to the market to buy food was a definite kick! You can choose your live chicken and watch the man slit its throat and start to pluck it bare. Dogs hang around and wait for the scraps. Many different kinds of vegetables are displayed, quite like Pike Place Market in Seattle, but where people actually buy things and the owners are very busy. Milk is purchased at a counter where they give you coins for your cash. Place those coins in a type of vending machine and bring your metal bucket to place under the nozzle as the machine sputters out fresh milk. Then at home you boil it and let it sit. Some of the milk is mixed in with leftover yogurt and placed in another metal bowl to sit overnight. The next morning, voila!, you have fresh yogurt again.



After one meal, Mr Verma suggested that we share songs so we spent a while singing our favorite songs and hearing some beautiful Hindi tunes. Singing is popular here-- the newest TV program is Indian Idol, where the actually American Idol producers have started the craze over here. Three judges diss the wannabes and there is the usual display of tears from the rejects and screams of joy from the ones who are sure that they will be the next star.



We only took three day trips into Delhi because the bus ride was about 1 hour each way. We saw the usual sites and were a bit overwhelmed by the touristy areas and the hordes of people trying to get you to buy their goods or ride in their bicycle rickshaw. My favorite site was the Craft Museum where we saw many Indian crafts like sculpture, textile, and woodwork. They had a no pressure shop too where the items were actually listed with prices and no one even talked to you! It was great and we bought so much good stuff.



Yes, we had so much good stuff that we had to send a box home, but spent too much of the morning in Noida, chatting and drinking their tasty chai. By the time we reached Delhi, the post office for mailing packages was closed and the shipping company DHL wanted to charge us 100 USD to mail the box home within 3 days. No thanks. So we tried our luck at the government post office and found that the package area was indeed closed three hours ago. However, for a "late fee" the package area would open up again and we could mail our package, said the man behind the counter. So for 1250 rupees we sent our package, along with the 100 rupee late fee. Bribery at its best but we didn't care because we weren't about to lug around the extra weight.







In Delhi we also became experts at crossing the six lane highways and learning how to not get run over. Much less honking happened here and the drivers seemed more orderly. The only problem was the autorickshaws trying to give you a ride as we are trying to cross the street. Some of then even get out of their vehicles and try to talk to you about where they can take you, even after you've said a firm NO about ten times.



Our last night in Delhi, I wore my newly tailored sari, complete with the laughable tennis shoes (my flip flops aren't made for walking), and faced the stares of people seeing the tall Westerner wrapped in blue. We went to visit Mr. Verma's Modern School for their Founder's Day program. Stopped by the McDonalds on the way for the McAloo Tikki burger, all veg and no meat products served anywhere on the premise. It was very modern in there and I was the only person in a sari, everyone else wore jeans and t-shirts and selected music videos from the MTV-style jukebox.



The Founder's Day program was like an Open House where the uniformed students showed off their projects, like in the Global Warming room where we could see demonstrations of the sun melting the glaciers and the floods in the valleys. They even had drawn a funny political cartoon about Bush and his poor environment policies. Mr. Verma's art students had a great display of painting, laterns, masks, and murals. True to Indian style, they had brilliant color and showed a lot of life. The school itself was gorgeous, with nice brickwork and trees decorated with Christmas lights, while people roamed around to serve you snacks and tea.







We had a late night drinking Limca (lime soda) and a mix of gin and sampled the overly sweet rasgulla (a doughy ball in sugar syrup) and eating food. It was sad to say goodbye the next day as we headed to Agra. Once again we become tourists with the routine of hotels and restaurants, with no one to tell us stories or share their day with us.