With memories of Greece’s endless turquoise sea and golden sunlight still dancing in our heads, we arrived in New Delhi to find ourselves in a place that couldn’t be any more different than the place we just left. We touched down around 8 pm and after customs and baggage, walked out into a hazy, polluted and crowded airport. We had made arrangements with our guide, Rajesh, to pick us up at the airport and luckily we did.
We were all hungry so we stopped by a local fast food joint at the front of the airport, called Wow! Momo, serving Tibetan/Nepalese dumplings, very similar to Chinese steamed dumplings. The wait was longer than expected so we had ample time to observe our surroundings.
It’s hard to say what was the first thing that I noticed because everything demanded attention. I later found out that this would prove to be a state of being during the 40 plus days that we spent in India. We would be in a constant state of alertness because everything demanded attention.
The air was heavy with pollution, making breathing more laborious than it should be. I recognized this feeling from the years we spent living in Beijing when the air quality index was regularly in the 300-500 range. RY and AY were born in Beijing. During those years, I often thought it was cruel to raise children in a place where they spent more days shut inside a house with air purifiers running on full blast, than they spent playing outside. The first thing I did when I woke up every morning was to check my phone for the AQI because that would determine the activities for the rest of the day. The unbearable pollution in Beijing was one of the reasons we moved to Shanghai before DY was born.
While we were waiting for our momo order, a few stray dogs came sniffing around. I looked to see how others nearby reacted to these dogs that seemed to be members of a pack. The other people standing around us weren’t warm or cold to them, didn’t even seem to notice them. Our kids, who love dogs, cautiously asked if they could pet them, but I told them to stay away from them. These dogs were looking for food, not affection. We were advised by Rajesh to beware as they could have rabies. He told us to close any food bags because if they smelled food, they could get aggressive. Lots of people are like that too.
After waiting for far too long, our momo order was ready and we headed off. Delhi is a sprawling city that is home to 33 million people, even more than Beijing’s 22 million. It was hard to get a sense of the city as we drove through the darkness. However, we could tell that it was congested as we faced bumper to bumper traffic on the highway.
We arrived at our Airbnb in west Delhi, on a street lined with low-rise residential buildings of about 5-7 stories high. The driver and Rajesh had to stop and ask three different people by the side of the road how to find the apartment. It would have been impossible to navigate, especially at night, without a driver or a local who knew the area or could speak Hindi. The hosts, a pair of identical twin brothers, came down to greet us. The streets were paved, but dusty, and the apartment building looked old and dingy. The doorman, not the uniformed kind, more like a dude paid to hang out by the door all day, possibly even sleep on a cot at night, to keep unwanted elements away and to help out when needed. He helped us move our luggage upstairs to our apartment using the smallest elevator I’ve ever seen, probably couldn’t squeeze more than two regular-sized adults.
The twins showed us to the apartment and in a confusing way, it was modern but felt old at the same time. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The front door of the apartment entered into a living area with wall paneling and tasteful furniture. This was probably the best room of the house and it was a photo of this room, plus oddly perfect ratings, that led me to book this apartment. The dining area was at the heart of the house and it was sparsely decorated with only a large glass dining table and stiff chairs. There was a small shrine in the corner featuring Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed god of prosperity, luck and beginnings.
The kitchen and the bedrooms were all connected to the dining area. I believed the tile flooring had been mopped but it felt a little grimy. The bedrooms were spacious but the splintering wooden furniture and plaster crumbling from the decorative wall trim gave away the apartments age and lack of maintenance. The beds were made with thick fuzzy blankets instead of bedsheets and another thick blanket where a duvet should have been. Without saying it aloud, we all wondered whether these had been washed since the previous guest. To put our minds at ease, Leo verbalized what we were all thinking and asked one of the twins, who confirmed that they were freshly laundered. We hoped that it was true.
It was late and we were tired, so after a quick tour of the apartment, the twins retired to their flat upstairs. Finally alone, we sat down at the table to eat our momos. The apartment reminded me of apartments I had seen in Shanghai when I first moved there in the early 2000s. Even inside, it was cold, humid and noisy from the sounds ricocheting off of thin walls, floor tiles and cheap furniture.
As we were getting ready for bed, we couldn’t figure out how to turn on the heating in the apartment. I messaged the twins to ask. They said they would be down in a second with electric space heaters. As promised, in a few minutes, they delivered three heaters. We thanked them and said good night. We got two of the heaters going but in the third bedroom, after trying several wall sockets, we couldn’t find one that worked. I messaged the twins again and they appeared in our apartment again, ready to help in two minutes flat. They tried a few wall sockets and couldn’t get them to work either – old wiring. They used an extension cord and connected the heater to another socket and at least got the heater going. It was getting late so that would have to do.
The next morning, we woke up late and hungry. It turns out that overnight, RY and DY played host to some unwanted visitors. The two of them emerged from their room weary and blurry-eyed. It was obvious they hadn’t had a good night’s sleep. They showed us the 10 or more mosquito bites they had gotten overnight and then RY pointed to the table where he gloated over his prowess as a hunter – a mosquito hunter. Like a hunter arranges his kills, there were at least 20 mosquito carcasses laid out on the table. This was a new record to go down in the books – 20 kills in one night.
We weren’t sure what we would find outside so I decided to order from Zomato. I’ve become an expert at ordering from local delivery apps all over the world, like Grab Eats in Kenya, Uber Eats in South Africa, Talabat in Egypt and now Zomato in India. I skimmed through the restaurant options and quickly decided on Haldiram, a big fast-food chain restaurant in India. I’ve never eaten Indian breakfast food before, so I randomly selected some Indian breads and various dishes that didn’t look too spicy. I threw in a few yogurt drinks and hoped for the best.
In 30 minutes, the food was delivered. We searched the kitchen for some plates and flatware and I got distracted as I examined an entirely unfamiliar kitchen and its contents. The kitchen was sparsely equipped with only a counter-top gas range and a complicated looking water filtration system with various tubes protruding from a big box attached to the tap. In the cabinets, there were a few metal pots of different shapes, some large and some smaller. Some looked like the dishes that curries are served in at nicer Indian restaurants, which I had always thought were serving dishes but maybe I was wrong, they might be cooking pots. I opened all of the cabinets one at a time, searching for ceramic plates, but could only find large metal platters. There were no glasses, just metal cups. It crossed my mind that the metal trays and cups might be used for a certain type of meal, but I wasn’t sure and they would have to do. The flatware was mismatched and made of thin metal. Many of the spoons were warped out of shape but still functional.
We gathered the metal platters, metal cups and a few spoons and sat down to eat our first Indian meal in India and the first Indian breakfast of our lives. There were lots of plastic containers of curries and sauces. Exactly what I had ordered, I wasn’t sure and I didn’t know what went with what. I later sent a photo of our dining table full of plastic takeaway containers to my Indian friend A and she gave me detailed description of what each contained and how it should be eaten.
The various fried breads had gone cold but seemed like they could be tasty when fresh. The curries were too spicy for the kids. The oil had separated and rested in a thick layer as if it were a topping. It didn’t look very appetizing, but we gave all of the dishes a tryL
After breakfast, we ventured out on a hunt for a local SIM card. We stepped out of our building into a dusty street. There were a few people walking on the street, but it was largely quiet. The area was clearly suburban with apartment buildings lining the streets.
As we approached the main road, the sound of traffic and in particular, non-stop honking got louder and louder. The main road was a jumble of cars, motorcycles and rickshaws all on their way somewhere, swerving to avoid the cows that roamed freely on the street. We waited to cross the road, but nobody yielded to us. No problem, we’ve been in this kind of traffic before. Just like in Vietnam and Shanghai circa 2005, the drivers will stop when we walk in front of them. With the kids sandwiched in between us, we bravely stepped onto the road and moved in synchronization, as if we were one body, toward the opposite side of the road.
The first shop that we tried turned out not to have any SIM cards. The next shop we wanted to try was too far to walk, so we hailed a rickshaw from the side of the road. We had some difficulty communicating our destination to the rickshaw driver. A motorcyclists standing nearby had been observing us the whole time and tried to help with his limited English. Before long, we were on our way. I felt less vulnerable riding on the rickshaw, with some barrier from the chaos on the streets. I wondered whether I should be feeling that way. Was it better to be walking, in control but exposed to the dangers of the road, or to be riding, a passenger who relinquishes control to the driver who may or may not deliver us safely.
After a few shops, we found a SIM card. Next door to the SIM card shop was a little Western bakery where we bought some chocolate covered breadsticks.
With working cell phones in hand, we were free to find a place for dinner. We decided on a nearby shopping mall called Pacific Mall Tagore Garden, so we could get an idea of the lay of the local landscape. The mall was modern with lots of shops and restaurants. We had dinner in a restaurant called Punjab Grill on the top floor. We ordered some chaat, tandoori chicken and a tableside flaming chicken biryani. The food was rich and delicious.
After dinner, we walked around the mall and browsed in a few shops. There was a toy shop called Hamley’s that had an attraction called Mirror Maze, that cost extra to go in. The kids begged to do it even though we warned them it wouldn’t be as good as they imagined. Given a choice between an ice cream and an entry ticket to the Mirror Maze, RY, DY and EY chose the maze. Only AY chose the ice cream. The Mirror Maze turned out to be a disappointment, just a room with a few mirrors that took less than a minute to go through. Everybody held up their end of the bargain and only AY got the ice cream, though she did share a few bites with her siblings.
Back at home later that night, the kids entertained themselves in the one good room of the house. When I look back at the photos, the room looks so much better than it was in real life. In the pictures, it looks like a fancy hotel room. I think the wall paneling and the stylish furniture lend an air of distinction that comes across in the photos. What the photos don’t capture are the slightly grimy floors, crumbling wall plaster collecting in the corners, and the cold, humid air trapped inside by the lack of ventilation.
After two nights, we left the apartment early the next morning to begin our 10-day guided tour with Leo’s family. Even though the rest of Leo’s family were not set to arrive until later that day, we were eager to check into the Taj Hotel early to be in a more central area and make the most of our stay. After nearly four months of hopping from one Airbnb to the next, staying in a five-star hotel was a welcome luxury.
