Gustible - under the rubric of [$_SELF]

I went on a brief business trip to Delhi last week, and took the opportunity to stay for the weekend. It was not my first visit to Delhi – but it just reaffirmed how much I like this city.

There is something about Delhi that makes me feel nostalgia for some dreamlike past or future. The dust and heat and chaos paints an intensely vivid picture. Nothing in Delhi is a half-measure. It is either completely broken, or wonderfully efficient. Terribly ugly, or breathtakingly beautiful. One has to find your own balance amid all of this.

I love the smells of the city – the smell of dust and sewage, then a sudden silky ribbon of jasmine. Delhi smells like adventure and secrets. Enterprise and entrepreneurship. Tradition, religion, devotion and commerce blends into an intriguing melange of cultural expressions. God is everywhere.

I spent the weekend with a colleague, and we visited a number of tourist spots around the city. And that brings me to another aspect of the society that I find very inspiring  – in many countries “tourist” and “heritage” sites are visited exclusively by foreigners…not here. Here the residents are refreshingly more in evidence than the tourists.

Some pictures…

Brijinder – our capable and brave driver – navigating towards the Main Bazaar in Paharganj.

This is my favourite shoe shop in Paharganj – the shoes are great, the prices extremely reasonable.

The Bahá’í House of Worship, or Lotus Temple. Inside the building a sense of peace and calm prevails.

Colourful near Daryaganj

Bookseller at the Sunday book market in Daryaganj. Keywords – poverty, technology, learning, education, society.