A Winter in India

We are thankful for the people who do the laundry. We take it to a little place in Bengali Market, where someone sews on little cloth tags that identify it as ours. Then it disappears to people called dhobi wallahs, who separate it by color, soak it, beat it, scrub it and hang it to dry. It then gets ironed by other people, some of them in the alley behind our apartment. They are there til 8:30 at night, a woman sorting, and a man ironing with a hugely heavy-looking cast metal iron. Somehow it all comes back and its all spotless, and it all looks like this, whether its the dishtowel, or the dress shirt, or the undershirt or a polypro T-shirt.

Its a thrill to see birds like this. Its called an Alexandrine parakeet, although at 50 cm its the size I would call a parrot. And to see colors like this birds against colors like the gnomon of the Jantar Mantar just wakes up all of your senses.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the U.S. It is a holiday at Fulbright House here in Delhi, but otherwise it isn't. We will be at work. We will be missing you all very much. As many of you know, at Thanksgiving we like to go around the table and say some things we are thankful for. The blog will have to be our table, but it will feel a tiny bit like we are there sharing with you.

We are thankful for the chance to be here, and thankful to the many, many of you who have made and are making this possible. Having the opportunity to see places like this: the Jantar Mantar, an observatory built here in Delhi in 1710. The red triangle is the gnomon of a GIANT sundial, big enough that the shadow tells the time down to the second. The brandnew building in the background is part of the city government. The constant juxtaposition of the old and the new here is something we really enjoy seeing.

India has only been a free democracy since 1947. After World War II Britain did not have the energy to deal with a very restive Indian freedom movement. India had been more than ready to become a non-colonial, free democracy since before the First World War!
Like all new republics India needed a flag. On July 22, 1947 the young Indian legislature adopted the above design as their flag. The three colors are dark saffron, white and green. The dark saffron signifies courage and sacrifice; the white signifies truth and peace: and the green signifies faith and chivalry. The round blue object on the white stripe is an ancient symbol copied from the Lion Capital of Asoka in Sarnath.

While we were being tourists at the Red Fort, so were lots and lots of Indians, mostly in large family groups. More than once we were asked "What country you from?" and then, people asked if they could take a picture of themselves with us. We said yes. This time, we said, sure, you can take our picture, if we can take a picture of you as well. So, on the left is me joking with the young girl who the rest of the family appointed as their spokesperson. Those are her sisters, father and brother with us. Then the other photo were the rest of the family who tried to stay out of the photo.

These were taken last weekend at the Red Fort here in Delhi. One is the inlaid marble work on just one of the dozens of columns in Shah Jehan's Hall of Private Audiences. The fabled Peacock Throne was here in Shah Jehan's time (mid 1600s) but was carted off to Persia in the 1700s and is still in Tehran now.

The other photo is Lahore Gate, a tiny little part of the massive wall that gives the Red Fort its name. Shan Jehan, who built all this was the same guy who also built the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal in Agra.

Riding in an autorickshaw is a hoot!! I remember riding on my motorcycle weaving in and out of traffic lanes and really pissing off the motorists who followed the rules of the road. Those bursts of temporary insanity make great memories (if you survive). Well, in Delhi the main source of ‘vehicle for hire’ is the autorickshaw, and every driver of an autorickshaw is trying to maximize his number of survival memories. The minute-by- minute measure of an autorick driver’s bravado is how tightly he can eclipse the motion of his fellow companion on the roads of Delhi.

The above image was taken while stopped at a red light on Bahadur Shah Zafar Road. There are definitely lane lines painted on all the major roads. But like the pirate captain in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie responded when asked about a seeming violation of the Pirate Code, “Rules? they’re only guidelines, arrgh !” Now really study this picture. The inside of my autorick is in the foreground, but so isn’t the wheel of the bus and the back of the next autorick. There just doesn’t seem to be any background!! Notice the number of lug nuts on the bus wheel, seven is almost eight!

The image above is an autorickshaw. It is the medium luxurious way to get around Delhi! As you can see it is actually a motorscooter with three wheels and a cab for the driver and two or three passengers. They are very stable at the speed they can go. The steering is just like a motorscooter or motorcycle with the brake lever and throttle on the right and left handlebars. We had to go to a fancy hotel the other night for a meeting, and the open sides of an autorick don’t do much to prevent your hair from being set free. It is definitely the best way to get around Delhi, the crazy drivers weave in and out of jams and deliver you right to your destination. Before we get in the autorick we “negotiate” with the driver about the fare. He says an outrageous figure and we finally settle on much less. My idea of outrageous is always being modified. Our local friends complain that we pay too much and give these drivers the idea that their service is worth more. But gosh, we can go all over Delhi for about sixty rupees, which is about $1.50 . Most New York cab rides start two or three times that when you enter the cab. There is a federal law that says that all public transportation including these autoricks must be fueled by natural gas, no more diesel fuel. That should pay big dividends in the pollution area.

The image above is a composite that Pam made of the Matrimonials section in the Sunday newspaper. One can learn a lot about a culture by looking at the want ads, commercial and personal. As with all abbreviations it takes a member of the culture to fully understand all the “not so obvious” meanings to all the shorthand. These ads were placed by families, looking to arrange marriages for their elligible young adults

Today was another beautiful, post-monsoon, pre-winter, dry day in Delhi. We are told that there is definitely a winter season here, where wool is needed. It may be winter in the astronomical sense, but what about raw data to crunch on. New Delhi is on approximately the same latitude as Miami, Florida, about 26° N. I hope it doesn’t get too cold. Our apartment has no means of creating heat. Imagine a living space with no woodstove, furnace or electric heater. Well, a boy from New England has got to be more cold resistant than the locals. I’ll see if my eighteen year-old boy nephew Robbie likes it when he comes at Christmas time. Me, I’m a 57 year old non-boy who was entertaining thoughts of Arizona! I remember as a kid meeting some elderly distant cousin Robert who was visiting my grandfather. Granky (best that my dad could do with Grampy when he was a wee lad and it carried over) had on his string undershirt and I had my usual summertime skimpy “Pigpen” outfit, and we were both sweating. Cousin Robert had on a wool cardigan sweater! Man, was his internal thermostat screwed up! I hope that I’m not considered elderly yet, but I may become the Cousin Robert of my generation in the Baker crowd. See my rambling shows that I am approaching elderliness.

These photos were taken on our way to the Dental school. We commute by autorickshaw, about a ten-minute ride, and then walk across the medical school grounds. Haven’t found out the name of these flowering trees yet, but they are huge and just solid with these flowers that are each about five inches across. All kinds of birds, and thousands of bees are buzzing in the trees (how poetic), and this particular day there were a group of parrots lecturing loudly. Actually here they are called Alexandrine parakeets, but they are 50 cm (20 inches) long!

Last Friday we heard a very good lecture from an excellent teacher at Maulana Azad, Dr. Pankaj Goel, professor of Community Dentistry. He gave an overview of public health legislation in India. Some laws parallel similar legislation in the U.S. and Europe, such as the 1975 Cigarette Act that required package labeling, or the 1998 Biomedical Waste Management Act that spells out how medical and dental offices must collect and dispose of things like syringes, infectious materials, and mercury. Other laws seem to go well beyond ours. The 1995 Persons with Disabilities Act actually sets aside 10% of all government jobs, including even parliamentary seats, for people with disabilities. The 1986 Consumer Protection Act covers services provided by doctors and dentists, so a patient with a grievance can take it to a consumer protection court. The Transplantation of Human Organs Act of 1994 made organ donation legal, although it is still a difficult concept for many Hindus to accept. My favorite name for legislation, however, is the 1954 Drugs and Magic Remedies Act! Actually it requires truth in advertising of products and procedures.