After spending some time with the diplomats and air conditioning, it was time for me to see the “real” Delhi. We decided that we were going to take the metro to Old Delhi (I could not resist the temptation to ride the Ladies Car), go to the mosque and have lunch at a restaurant the owner of our hotel had recommended (luckily, because the area is not very pretty, and even though we have enough Cipro, it is not cool to have diarrhea).
The day before, Sandra had hired a driver who took us to a fancy market, and even though I wanted to buy every single thing, I decided to only buy a kurta (a long, embroidered blouse). My trip to Old Delhi was the perfect opportunity to wear it, because after all the terrible things I had heard in Toronto and I had read on blogs about the sexual harassment of women, I really wanted to look proper and avoid “boob-grabbers.” So I put on my pistachio kurta, my loose grey pants, and my floral head-wrap.
We walked from our hotel to the metro station, and as expected it was insanely packed. However, the Ladies Car shined in the distance like a precious gem. It was empty, cool, and “boob-grabbers” free. A police officer, and a pink sticker on the floor that said “women only” marked the border of the promised land, and I, as the Messiah walked towards paradise, leaving all sinners behind.
Once we arrived to Old Delhi we walked among cows and goats, homeless people, garbage, tuk tuks, bikes, cars, beggars and urinals. We saw the mosque, and in front of it, in a narrow alley way with no exit, was the restaurant the owner of our hotel had recommended us. As soon as we sat down at a table, the waiter brought us red, raw onions! I really wanted to have some, I LOVE ONIONS! But Sandra and Alejandro had warned us “do not eat raw vegetables or you will get sick.” Maybe it was a punishment from the gods because the day before Caleb and I had had a burger in a very gringo restaurant: Dear Cow, I publicly ask you for your pardon, and I thank you for all the delicious dairy products. After our meal, I asked Caleb if we could go to the mosque, and he said it would require some energy because Indians want to charge tourists for absolutely everything, but we went for it.
We walked to the Mosque, took our sandals off and put them in my “mochila.” The floor was burning, but the fact that we had put our shoes in our bag and that we were not going to be charged for putting them in a locker was worth the pain of walking on fire. However, as soon as I had declared victory, a stranger hugged me from behind and wrapped me in an old floral sheet that someone had sewn into a bath robe. Yes, I had to pay for that! For melting in a polyester sauna, even though I was properly dressed: my legs were not showing, my arms were not showing, my hair was not showing. Proof of the latter is that no one, absolutely no man had looked at me. Well, Caleb says that some of them did, but I did not notice; I was definitely not harassed, maybe because I am not a tall, white, blond Swedish woman, or maybe because I was walking beside a man that looks like a Tibetan gangster, or maybe because I was covered from top to bottom, despite the 45°C. I don’t know. The point is, however, that in order for me to enter the mosque I had to be dressed up as a blue, Hawaiian table cloth.
I accepted my fate and entered the first space with marble floors to cool down, but Caleb immediately held my arm. Apparently we were in the most important space in the entire mosque and I was jumping and running, behaving like an ignorant, white tourist (which I am). But how was I supposed to know that this was such an important space? Let me remind all of you that I come from a Catholic tradition. In a cathedral, there are candles, an altar, IMAGES, and people SITTING DOWN. At the mosque there were, obviously no images, no altar and people not sitting down but literally sleeping on the floor (and I not that ignorant, I am not talking about those who were praying; I am talking about people cuddling each other). I thought that was pretty cool, though. I wish we could spoon each other at mass.
After I started to feel my feet again, I spotted, among the men who were praying, a man who was wearing a shirt that said “fighting solves everything.” I thought that was pretty ironic. This man was lying on his knees and his forehead touched the floor; he could not look more peaceful and tranquil with himself and his surroundings. But maybe he was not praying that hard, because as soon as Caleb and I left the room he followed us, recording every step we took with his phone. We walked across the mosque, my feet were burning again, and the paparazzo was not giving up. I was about to hit bottom. But then Caleb pointed at a tall tower, and told me we could go up the tower and see Delhi. I thought that was a pretty cool idea.
We had to buy tickets to go upstairs, of course, and then fight with the guy that collected them because he was pretending we had just given him one, not two. But after all the normal hassle we were allowed in. Then the interesting part started. The stairs to go up were incredibly narrow and steep (probably 80 cm. wide). I was trying to control my claustrophobia and my nausea, while going up the endless, dark spiral, and once I was getting used to the space, things got worse: people were going down as well! This was the perfect opportunity for the boob-grabber boogeyman to attack. However, men did not even notice me, to the point where one of them hit me on the head, and my head-wrap fell off. I was very unhappy. Not only was I realizing that Indian men are simply not attracted to me, but I was boiling in my polyester sauna, and my hair was so wet I really did not want to feel it on my neck. So I murmured “fuck.” Oh, that they noticed! And in our narrow, dark, steep, spiral of rock every single Indian man laughed at me and repeated “fuck.”
Somehow we managed to get to the top, and the breeze did feel great. However, the space was not that much bigger, and there was barely space for us to stand. So we looked around, took a picture, and went back into the vertical tunnel. This time, however, a group of Indian teenagers did notice me, and all said hi. Since my self-esteem was back to its normal levels after some male attention we decided to go to our Western paradise McDonald’s and have an ice-cream. Sadly Caleb had to buy them outside, and the 30 seconds it took him to enter the restaurant again were enough for the ice-cream to melt.
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