Freshnosedandinshock

Chaotic, traumatic,surprising and con-tradictory; CatrlonaGray describes herearly impressionsof New Delhi

Facingpage, top:The seatbelt-IessAmbassador taxiswould later proveluxurious com-pared to door-lessautorickshaws.Bottom: A bird'seye view of theceaseless streets

FROM THE moment we arrived inDelhi airport, the change in atmo-sphere was palpable. Despite it beingthe cold season, it was still far hotter,and the air much drier than it evergets in Ireland. Even the view from theaeroplane window suggested a promiseof what was to come: a wide expanseof reddish ground, dotted with theoccasional dusty green tree, the pan-orama punctuated by clusters of low,white concrete buildings. Outside theairport buildings, the culture shock re-ally struck, as we searched for our taxiamidst the throngs of people millingabout and shouting to each other in amix of Hindi and English. There werea surprisingly small number of tourists,all of whom looked very out of placeamongst the chaotic bustle of the smalldusty area outside the airport.The taxi ride to the hostel was my

first experience of Delhi driving. Thetaxi driver drove his 1950s style, verybattered Ambassador at a breakneckspeed, beeping his horn constantly ashe swerved between lanes of traffic, anddisplaying a casual disregard for any ofthe usual rules of the road. Still freshoff the plane at this point, the lack ofseatbelts in the back was a bit unnerv-ing, although in comparison to theauto-rickshaw rides that would be ourprimary mode of transport through-

out our stay, this taxi-ride was sheeropulence.We were staying in Pahar Ganj,

which is right in the centre of NewDelhi, and is one of the biggest touristmarkets, mainly due to its close prox-imity to the railway station. Picturethousands of people crammed intoa very small area, filthy streets linedwith stalls covered in brightly coveredsouvenirs, with beggars, traders andrandom men all extremely eager toassist you in parting with your newlyacquired rupees as you drag yoursuitcase behind you and desperatelytry to find your hostel which is locateddown one of countless, unidentifiable,dodgy-looking side streets. The stallsare nearly exclusively run by men, whospit effusively and constantly, and stareblatantly at any tourist, particularly thefemale ones.After much trauma, we eventually

found the hostel, and immediatelyembarked upon an argument with themanager regarding the price of therooms. Money seems to be everyone'soverriding obsession - in Pahar Ganjat least - and haggling is obligatory, asprices are automatically hiked up fortourists. Whilst in India, we had to talkand think about money all the time. Itwas a constant issue, despite the factthat the prices involved were often

Left: The autorick-shaw, our mainsource of transport- and hagglingdisputes

ridiculously small when converted intoeuro. We frequently spent ages hagglingwith a rickshaw driver in order to geta reduction of 10 or 20 rupees, whichis the equivalent of 16 and 31 cent.Taken out of context, it seems incred-ibly miserly to quibble about suchtiny sums of money, but it was more amatter of principle than anything else,as it seemed wrong to have to pay fouror five times the price that an Indianwould pay for the same journey.The different value of money is

also something that seems particularlyunique to India. The division betweenrich and poor India is unbelievable,with people surviving on as little as onerupee per day on one hand, while bycontrast a night in the plusll Imperialhotel could set you back up to 80,000rupees. India has a disparity betweenrich and poor that is non-existent in theWest: the very structure of our societydoes not permit such an extreme gapbetween poverty and affluence. Thesheer size of India's population, howev-er, enables such contrasts to exist, and itwas one of the aspects of our stay thatstruck most strongly.We went to India a week after

the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, andalthough I was not particularly awareof it at the time having never been toIndia before, looking back now it isclear that they did have some impact

on our stay. There were quite a lot ofsecurity checks - we had to go throughmetal detectors and be searched notonly at airports and when going to seenational monuments, but when goinginto shopping malls and even when wewent to the cinema. Having no concep-tion of what was "normal" in India, Iaccepted this as standard procedures,but in retrospect, the atmosphere wasquite tense, there were less tourists thanexpected (although, to be fair, it wasn'tthe tourist season) and all three of usnoticed the number of security guardswho seemed to be present everywhere.Delhi itself is one of the most

surprising and contradictory placesI've ever visited. It is an assault on thesenses: in the bostel the noise of carhorns and shouting was in constantcompetition with the Hindi film musicemanating from the room across thehall, and walking down the street it wasimpossible not to notice the aroma ofspices and cooking that mingled withthe smell of incense and cow dung.Throughout the course of our stay inIndia, the culture difference continuedto reassert itself, and it became increas-ingly apparent that, given the enormityof the country and the way the societyand economy is structured, our deci-sion to write about "Development andIndia" would prove to be a far hardertask than we had initially thought.

Right: Main Bazaar,Pahar Ganj: Ourhome - and that ofmany backpackersand tourists - forthe duration of ourstay.

Our eyes havebeenopened

Some finalthoughts fromCatrlona Gray onthis trip and theproblems weencountered inDelhi.

REFLECTING UPON such an intenselyeye-opening trip just emphasised thediversity of the problems that Indiafaces, and also how little it is possibleto know about India, as a visitor. Per-sonally, I felt a terrible feeling of beingcompletely unqualified to write aboutit, although I am not sure whether any-one could ever be in a position to writeauthoritatively about a subject as broadas "Development and India".India is huge; the country is home to

approximately 1.13 billion people andDelhi alone has a population roughlythree times that of Ireland. There areso many different aspects of India thatit would be impossible to ever fullyunderstand all of them. What the tripto Delhi did do was open my eyes tothe enormity of the country and theincredible complexity of the problemsthat India faces. Having been told thatit was a third world country, it came asa surprise to see the abundance of shop-ping malls and five-star hotels. Theseshowed a very different side to Indiathan the one so often propagated bycharitable organisations.The country seems to be comprised

out of countless layers, from theamazingly rich to extremely poor andeverything in between. India is not onlythe most poverty-stricken place that Ihave ever seen, but also the wealthi-

est. From an outsider's perspective, itseems incredible that all these differentlayers manage to co-exist, and that thewealthy and the impoverished live atsuch close proximity to one another. Itis common to find slums directly out-side private gated residences, and bare-foot children knocking on the darkenedwindows of expensive, chauffeur-drivencars.While we were in Delhi, we spoke to

Amarendra Singh from the World Bank,who explained the structure of Indiansociety and the imbalances which existwithin it, saying that there is still hugeinequality between the sexeswhich seesgirls being taken out of school muchearlier than their male counterparts,and he also noted the caste systemwhich still survives and creates furtherdivisions. The sheer size of India alsomeans that there is a huge differencein living conditions between regionsas each region can vary significantly ineverything from customs, language, re-ligion, and even the different food thatthey cook. There is such extraordinarydiversity in India that it is almost im-possible to make general observationsabout the development of the countryas a whole.The thing that was most striking was

the scale of the problems that Delhi isexperiencing. Having seen the head-

quarters of Prayas, and having beenshown around several of the schools,it was clear how much of a need therewas to incorporate more children intothe educational system, and improvethe extremely basic facilities that thechildren who are already in Prayasand state-schools have. In the schoolsthat we saw, there were about fortychildren of all ages packed into a singleclassroom, which was roughly the sizeof the average office in Trinity's ArtsBlock. The children had no tables orchairs, and it didn't seem as if they evenhad enough books or stationary to goaround. Despite the best efforts of theirteachers, it seems impossible that theycould receive a proper education insuch an overcrowded and under-facili-tated environment.The efforts of the individual seem

to be merely a drop in the ocean giventhe enormity of the problems that exist,even in an organisation like Prayas. Weonly saw a tiny aspect of the challengesthat India faces, but it was enough toopen our eyes to the magnitude of theoverall difficulties that exist withinthe country. To really understand theproblems that India experiences, itis necessary to view them from anIndian rather than a Western perspec-tive, which is extremely difficult as anoutsider. India is evolving and changingat a rapid pace, and at the moment hasan economy that is thriving as much asour own is struggling. A week spent inDelhi has not provided any definitiveanswers to the questions that we camewith, but it did draw our attention tothe scale of the social and economic is-sues that India is experiencing.

Below: Nightclubs,such as this onein trendy BasantLok, are part of therich people's India,which often backsright onto poorstreet dwellings.Right: Pahar Ganj'sMain Bazaar neverfell silent, evenlate into the night.