A View That Might Kill!

We woke to a view from the hotel equivalent to the London Smogs of the last century. And from what they were saying on TV, just as toxic!

That apart, our hotel was superb, although the prices were as eye-watering as the air outside. Taxes add nearly 40% to everything; one wouldn’t mind if there was any chance that it would help the poor souls sleeping under the flyover down the road, but I suspect not.

As we went down for a late brunch, the lobby was alive with a number of wedding groups, all stunningly elegant in Indian formal clothes, with wonderful displays of flowers and food. It was totally magical – apart from having Cliff Richard bawling out ‘Congratulations” on the sound system.

After lunch, S had seen on the map a major market not far from the hotel and fancied a walk. I had some reservations about this plan (not least, how actually to cross the road outside the hotel) but mine were as nothing compared with those of the concierge who begged us to take a cab. We were made of sterner staff but S did decide that a dust mask was a wise investment. I scoffed at this – after two blocks, mine was also in place, with the air stinging both eyes and throat.

‘Watching your step’ takes on a whole new meaning in India. Simultaneously, you don’t want to look down but you don’t dare not! After about 20 mins of smashed up pavements, lethal road crossings, the ‘homes’ of homeless people and dodgy-looking dogs – bang on plan, we found ourself in an abandoned housing estate…

This looked like it had once been a model plan of social housing but for reasons unknown, had been left to fall into ruins. Just one or two odd flats were still occupied, accompanied by a number of packs of dogs and an unlikely herd of cattle! We paused for though but S has faultless radar for retail opportunities and we eventually found ourselves gazing at an awesome spectacle.

Imagine an area the size of the whole Wembley complex, in a complex and enclosed grid of narrow and tiny thoroughfares, with stalls offering any single manufactured item you could possibly imagine and coupled by a crowd many tens of ten times larger than anything you would find at Wembley. It was beyond anything in our experience.

Three things became immediately apparent; first, that we were the only white faces in that huge seething mass and second, as such we were obvious targets for some cute but cunningly light fingered kids! Once we made it clear that we knew their particular game, they wandered off.

The third point was that we would be going nowhere unless we shoved! S is unfailingly polite and I had to convince her that repeating “after you’ in a county of 1.1 billion people could result in a bit of a wait. So shove I did, with S clinging onto my belt like our own two-person rolling maul. Having at least a foot height advantage and a couple of stone in weight was a major plus and I began to quite enjoy it, but after about 45 mins, S (without those advantages) had had enough and wanted to retreat to the hotel.

So we decided to embark upon our first ever TukTuk ride! This is like being part of some deadly theme park ride where a force is projecting towards your destination aboard most fragile and unstable form of transport imaginable whilst every other road user is trying to crush you under their wheels, all amidst a poisonous blanket of smog. It was unbelievable and the 10 minute ride cost 50p! The concierge was relieved and delighted to see us…

This brief sortie into ‘India Proper’ had been stunning in every sort of way but in the refuge of the hotel bar, we did think that whoever said ‘retail is dead’ has never been to Delhi!!