So the heat finally got to me. And by heat I mean ridiculous Indian bureaucracy, deathly temperature and stupifying humidity. Delhi heat is the ultimate psychological bully, pushing you until you have no choice but to retaliate. My first Delhi meltdown was yesterday in the Archives and began with a requisition slip and ended with a book being thrown (at me, not by me). Tapping into some serious Gandhian satyagraha nonviolence, I ignored every instinct to throw the book (and other things back) and instead stormed out in a self-righteous rage. The longer I am here, the less I understand Gandian nonviolence. The whole hunger-strike thing makes sense because it is hot as balls here and not eating means you avoid the viscerally unpleasant sensation of being a human pressure cooker. But nonviolence, in this heat? It’s nearly impossible. My curry hot temper seems at a constant simmer, ready to give way to a full-fledged eruption. Given that today is the 4th of July and I am as fed up as can be with the National Archives, it seemed as good a time as any to take the day off to do some sightseeing, to prevent another potential Krakatoa moment.
I could lie and tell you all about how I took to the streets of Old Delhi in search of authentic culture and a taste of non-globalized India but my pants would immediately ignite and choruses of children would resound, “Liar, Liar!” My real reasons for going were entirely corporeal but more of that in a second. To get to Old Delhi, I hopped onto the Metro which is all the things that India never is– clean, organized, punctual, orderly and cheap. (Obviously , the Japanese built it). My ride was uneventful but for the brief instant at which a scrawny Indian fellow leapt onto the train and sprinted onto my lap, apparently believing it to be a seat. One searing P-Saha-mess-with-me-and-die glance later, the chap scampered off to another car and another lap to occupy.
Old Delhi is what most Westerners imagine when they think of India– cars, trucks and autos battle fiercely for sovereignty on a road with pedestrians, cycles and cows. Cows and teeming masses of humanity. I could tell you all of the beauty of Jama Masjid and Lal Qila but I’d be playing to the wrong crowd and pretending I went for a reason other than the wonder of Paratha Wali Gali (Flatbread-Maker Row). Now, those of you who know of my love of parathas and have witnessed the many late-night burns endured for the bleary-eyed love of a crispy hot paratha will understand my excitement at learning of this place. I had, before I arrived in Delhi, even threatened to set up a tent and live in the dark and narrow alley of delicious. And those of you who do not even know what a paratha is, I weep for your ignorance. A paratha is the most wondrous of all Indian flatbreads, because in addition to being made of wheat flour and often filled with deliciousness, they are also deep-fried. Imagine the perfection of carbohydrate filled with starch and doused in hot oil. Perfection, I tell you.
So after much roaming about aimlessly through the streets of Delhi, I finally found a the gali and immediately made friends with the proprietor of one of the stalls. After learning that though I was American, mother-fatherji Indian, the paratha-wali proceeded to clap his hands, dance a little jig and proclaim with much Indian head-wobbling and hand-fluttering, “You me sister brother hai.” I was, by then, guaranteed a meal to die for. For the price of a paratha, a whopping Rs. 20 (less than $.50 for those keeping track), you get a plate with three kinds of vegetable curry and two kinds of pickle.
Bargains abound in the mother land. And the parathas were unlike any I had ever had– far more crunchy than the skillet fried ones mama-san makes or the the frozen-reheated ones I resort to in a fit of gastrolust, while still tender and fresh enough to melt in your mouth. Heaven I tell you, heaven. For the twenty or so minutes it took me to scarf a mixed veggie and alu paratha, I was as tranquil and content as anyone can be in 110 degree heat. The alu paratha, my very favorite of the paratha family, was good enough for me to consider calling my mother (at 3 am EST) to tell her that I had found a paratha better than hers (a daring bit, to say the least). While I shoveled sharp carrot pickle, sweet alu curry and delightfully bland cauliflower into my mouth, wrapped in the miraculous parcel of the paratha, all was right in the world. There was no noise too loud, no heat too oppressive, no shopkeeper too pushy. I was the Dalai Lama on a serious post-Thanksgiving tryptophane turkey high. The goodness of the moment lasted through my long-winded farewells with my new best mate amidst Hinglish promises to “coming back soon with husband,” (he looked so heartbroken for me when I said I was unmarried I immediately changed my story to say I was) and until I emerged from the glorious cool shadows of the gali onto Chadni Chowk (the major thoroughfare in Old Delhi) and was promptly forced into a traffic jam by a man who refused to move his cow out of the intersection and onto the sidewalk. Only in India, I swear.
