Bang the Peace Gong

The majority of travellers of India agree on one thing: Delhi sucks. It's overcrowded, it's stinky, it's smoggy and it's loud. Emily and I stayed two nights and just one day in the city. We spent the whole day out and did what we could, but didn't go crazy with sight seeing. Old Delhi in the morning, Gandhi Smriti in the afternoon and a Bollywood film in the evening.



Sunrise in Delhi.



Check out those power lines. Emily's bun got tangled and them once and really, that's just an octopus waiting to catch fire.



If there's any place to find solace in Delhi it's at the Gandhi Smriti (meaning "that which is remembered"). Ghandi spent his last days living in a modest house in a government-type area of Delhi. A few months after moving in, Gandhi was assassinated. This memorial marks the spot where Gandhi fell.



Part of the Gandhi Smriti includes a museum and a peace gong. Everybody was lining up to bang the peace gong. But, you weren't actually allowed to bang it. Lame.


The entire Gandhi Smriti, including the museum was free. Emily and I expected to spend about a half hour throughout the memorial, but ended up being there two and a half hours. The museum was super interactive and the history lesson was far from dry. After spending the morning being jostled around Old Delhi, the Smriti was a welcome break from the crowds. Plus the real Gandhi was there! See!



We went to a cinema to watch the Bollywood film "Tees Mar Khan" then stopped for a fresh jalebi from the Jalebi Walla at Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi. Hot damn that jalebi was hot and fresh. The deep fried, orange batter tastes like a sweeter chewier donut.

Old Dilli

On our way from Munnar to Dehli, Emily and I made a quick stop in Nagpur to check out the grave site of Em's great-grand aunt, Sister Aimee. She had been a nun in Nagpur back in the early 1900's and it meant a lot to Em's grandma that we stop by to see if we could get a picture of it.
I was hoping the hunt for the grave would lead to some epic novel I could write and make a ton of money off, but it actually turned out to be quite easy to find. We had the help of the Sisters of Saint Joseph and, of course, God was on our side.



We flew into Delhi from Nagpur. We arrived late so my first experience of Delhi, pronounced Dilli by the locals, was from the backseat of a taxi. It wasn't until the next morning when we took the subway into Old Delhi that I really got a taste and smell of the city.




If you can't carry it on your head, you're not Indian.


If your uncle doesn't have a shop that you want me to go to, then you're not Indian.


If you don't cheat tourists out of hundereds of Rupees by pretending to not know English, then you're not Indian.


If you don't sell trinkets outside holy places, you're not Indian (actually, you're not human if you don't make money off spirituality).


If you don't sleep in the middle of squares, you're not a pye dog.


If you don't find the most practical, "non-progressive" way of doing things, you're not Indian.