My Week: Indian parents, 'Sikhing' some peace and quiet, Gandering after Gandhi, and the perks of looking for a flat in Delhi
Hauz Khas complex - the ruins of a 13th century village, just 30 seconds walk from where I'm living |
After over a year away, I’m back in India – the weather is
sublime (despite my phone telling me each morning it’s smoke outside) and with
the coming of Diwali, Delhi is showing off its finest gladrags, with festive
lights adorning neighbourhoods across this vast, beguiling city. I’ve found
somewhere to live, and now getting down to the important things in life, namely meeting
old friends and reacquainting myself with the myriad cuisines on offer, from
simple yet delicious street-fare to the more refined, rich meaty curries of
northern India and exquisite vegetarian thalis from the south – fuelled by
regular cups of sweet chai! Anyway, here goes a series of random, disconnected
vignettes from my first week. Enjoy!
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It’s almost seen as axiomatic that in India there is no such
thing as privacy, and that young adults lack control over their lives, with the
close scrutiny of the family and Indian society at large quick to thwart any
‘deviant’ behaviour, whether it be in love, recreation or work. A recent
feature on BBC News described the efforts of Stay Uncle, a pioneering start-up
in Mumbai, to provide some relief for beleaguered unmarried couples by helping
them book 10-hour stays at hotels which promise discreet, non-judgemental
service. Yet Stay Uncle has struggled to overcome conservative social norms; only
three hotels have chosen to participate so far, with others fearing police
raids or simply refusing to endorse the concept. For those couples caught
committing such ‘indecency’ (which, incidentally, is not illegal under Indian
law), they potentially face public humiliation, familial ostracism and the
possibility of being forcibly married, under the auspices of ‘moral policing’.
Cartoon in The Times of India |
Equally, in many stereotypes lies a kernel of truth. Reading the venerable Times of India the other day, I spotted a notice taken out by a Mr
and Mrs Bisht – nestled amidst the latest news on the interminable
India-Pakistan conflict and editorials bemoaning the lamentable state of
Delhi’s air quality – informing the general public that they were disowning
their son and daughter-in-law, Mr Sharad Bisht and Mrs Anupama Bisht, for
‘their ill behaviour with us.’ Anyone foolhardy to deal with these miscreants
‘will be responsible for every pros and cons at his own cost’. You have been
warned.
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Paying my respects to the Mahatma |
The last time I was in India, any evidence of the legacy of
Mahatma Gandhi residing within the fabric of contemporary India seemed in scant
supply (a film released last week called ‘Gandhigiri’, promising to ‘enlighten
the audience on forgotten Gandhian values’, has been universally panned by
critics – judging by the trailer, I can’t blame them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpnqlNuRWWg). Those friends at Delhi
University who I had asked about Gandhi were uniformly scathing, casting him as
a misogynist and no longer relevant to today’s India. The closest I had come to
the Mahatma had been in the back of a rickshaw careering along the chaotic
Mahatma Gandhi ring-road in Delhi, and when handling rupee notes, which bear
his portrait. For a man indelibly perceived by many around the world as the
anti-materialistic, austere dhoti-clad Mahatma, whose finest moments arguably
came when marching on foot against the British Empire and Hindu-Muslim
violence, these tributes to Gandhi seemed bafflingly inappropriate.
Getting too excited about Gandhi |
With this in mind, and having taken a year-long course on
Gandhi and the Indian nationalist movement in my final year at Edinburgh, I
decided a visit to Birla House – where Gandhi spent the final 144 days of his
life before his assassination – was in order. Lodged in what is now the leafy
diplomatic enclave of Delhi, the two-storey house was undoubtedly a comfortable place of
residence for an increasingly frail Gandhi, worn down by his valiant efforts to
stem the communal violence raging across the sub-continent following Partition
in 1947.
Unsurprisingly, the treatment of Gandhi’s life was hagiographic; one
portrait of Gandhi inside the house juxtaposed him alongside Christ hanging on
the cross. To walk around the spot where Gandhi was shot the removal of shoes, as
with entering a mosque, temple or gurudwara, was mandatory, the ground
sanctified by the spilling of the Great Soul’s blood. Troops of schoolchildren
walking past the shrine, urged on by their teachers, dutifully cried out
Gandhi’s final, divine words: ‘He Ram!’ (Oh God!) In the museum, almost no
mention was made of one of the most controversial episodes in his life: his
decision to ‘fast unto death’ in 1933 in protest at attempts by the British to
give the downtrodden Dalit, or Untouchable, community the right to elect its
own political representatives. The (successful) fast was condemned by Dr
Ambedkar, the leading Dalit activist of the era and the framer of India’s
post-independence constitution, as a ‘foul and filthy act’, and it irrevocably soured
Gandhi’s legacy amongst many Dalits.
Despite this, it was undoubtedly still a poignant experience
to retrace the final steps of a titan of twentieth-century history, and view his plain
room and motley collection of personal effects, including a pair of his iconic
round glasses. Outside on the well-manicured lawn, a faithful acolyte weaved on
a charka, the spinning wheel which
Gandhi hoped all Indians would learn to use. As I left Birla House, having
decided not to honour Gandhi’s memory by buying something from the souvenir
shop, a street-hawker came towards me, armed with Gandhi figurines.
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The Gurudwara Bangla Sahib |
After several days of flat-hunting, I spent a welcome evening at
the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, the largest Sikh temple in Delhi, with a friend
from when I was on exchange at Delhi University. I am neither religious nor
spiritual, but I admire the egalitarian and charitable streak in Sikhism.
Sitting on the spotless marble floor of the langar,
or communal mess, rubbing shoulders (almost literally) with hundreds of people,
me and Harbajan took a simple, yet delicious meal of rice, dal, sabzi (vegetables) and chapattis,
finishing off with kheer, the local
equivalent of rice pudding. Anyone, regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion
or wealth, can eat without charge at the langar,
which is open for up to ten hours a day, every day of the year, serving lunch
and dinner and manned solely by volunteers. Afterwards, we walked around the
sacred pool adjacent to the gurudwara, as monks would in a cloister, and I soon
felt calm and far removed from the hustle of the city, as devotional music from
the inner sanctum drifted through the cool evening air.
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Not all experiences in India are memorable or capable of
being romanticised. I’m sure flat-hunting in Delhi is no more or less banal a
process than anywhere else in the world. The absurd and surreal is never too
far away though, and I found it in the tiny office of a property dealer in
South Delhi, who regally dispensed advice from the comfort of a well-worn sofa.
For any client also seeking some cosmic
wisdom and reassurance, a notice outside her tiny office proclaimed her skills
as an astrologer and ability to ‘see through you’ – a somewhat unfortunate
choice of phrase, given she had a lazy eye.
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