Leaving New Delhi

Our time is up in New Delhi, next stop: Bodh Gaya. With some caveats. First our train was to leave at 4pm this afternoon, but was delayed to 7pm, and then four more hours to 11pm. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s delayed again and we have to stay the night. It has been a very rainy – apparently at record levels around here. This has precipitated an outbreak of Dengue fever, along with other diseases including malaria, H1N1, and others.

Luckily we’re staying at a fairly good hotel/hostel, the YMCA (who’d a’guessed?), which has A/C and reasonably well maintained grounds, meaning that there aren’t a lot of mosquitoes around. Plus we’ve all been briefed on the many layers of precaution to take, including long clothes and insect replant.  Only one student has become ill, and she’s still walking and eating, so it’s not incredibly serious. Hopefully we all get to Bodh Gaya before anything too painful hits one of us.

New Delhi as a whole is a great city. It’s under a ton of construction now due to the Commonwealth Games, to begin in 26 days – headquartered right next door to the YMCA. The restaurant of choice – for many years it seems – for our program director, is the Saravanaa Bhavan, a South Indian vegetarian restaurant, just a few blocks from the Y (there’s also a McDonald’s on the same corner, in case you’re really home-sick). There is plenty of shopping, and, taking the usual precautions, the city is pretty safe and orderly.

Someone asked me to compare it to my experience in China last year, and I would say that the city here is in much the same state that the countryside is there. The countryside in China is still in a place of struggle between past and present, tradition and modernization. It’s a lot like that right here in the heart of the Indian capital.  Meanwhile the cities of China are thoroughly modern (smelly back-alleys and side-streets aside). It’s perhaps impossible to find a clean stretch of roadway here in Delhi, where there is no garbage or abandoned construction materials or broken down vehicles or dead animals, even just 100 yards or so.

The people we’ve met have been a mix. Some have been scammers of one sort or another (taxi, hotel, etc), to be avoided or interacted with at your peril. There are homeless people at many intersections and along shopping storefronts, but they tend to be harmless, just asking for a bit of help. There are children, just like the ones you see in Slumdog Millionaire, plaintively asking for money whenever we open a bus door at a popular tourist destination. Then there are many helpful people, offering directions, some even accompanying students to their destinations without asking for money or anything else in return.

Overall, the culture shock has been minimal thus far. A/C, clean comfortable beds, and an easy schedule have helped, along with the ‘safe food’ locations and access to the internet. All of that changes tonight – or whenever we leave. Things will be safe and reasonably comfortable inside the Vihar where we are staying, but no A/C, no internet (there are some cafe’s in town with it, so students can check email each week if needed), and generally more spartan conditions. We’ll also be starting classes and getting up at 5am each day for meditation practice. Then, when we do venture out, it’ll be up to our judgment what to eat and drink and where to stay. I’m sure we’ll survive (the program has existed over 30 years now and only had a couple serious incidents).

I, for one, look forward to being ‘settled’ again in Bodh Gaya. Perhaps once I’m there I’ll find some way to transfer photos to one of the net cafe computers (they don’t offer wi-fi and my USB device won’t work, but I’ll keep trying). ‘Till then, safe journeys to you, wherever you happen to be going 🙂