Thursday 19 & Friday 20 January - Lose Your Self

There are many ways to lose yourself.

Certainly Delhi is not easy to navigate for newbies, although by the second day, it's beginning to make sense. A giant wheel of travel has been superimposed over a teaming crush of jumbled construction. Like Bejing, Delhi is held by ring roads, the fastest way to get from one side to the other. Unlike like Bejing, India has a reasonable subway system, but it doesn't underlie the ring roads of this web. Puzzling that the city planners of neither city took this opportunity of mass contruction to maximize underground mass transit.. So as relative prosperity seaps in, it's cars, cars, cars. Hence Delhi's descriptive smog. Not as palpable as Bejing, but definitely a pervading presence. Reeks havock on the sinuses.

The city pie is then cut into wedges called 'blocks' marked by roads radiating from the center like the spokes of a wheel. Hailing a rickshaw, tell the driver "K block, 3rd ring," and if you know the name of a spoke road, that helps. But don't be surprised if it takes 3 or 4 attempts until you can be deposited at your destination. This is not London and most drivers, even the busses we hired, don't know their own city. They don't know English, or feign they don't, the meters never work, and "no change, no change." Rickshaws here are 3 wheeled motorscooters carrying the driver and a back seat sized for 2. A precarious tubular frame is fitted with a vinyl roof, back and right side, or more likely, draped with whatever the driver could get his hands on - yellowed plastic, worn carpets, discarded fabrics. Some are fancifully decorated with plastic or silk flowers, bright sticker pictures streamers or painted trims. The left side has no door or window, so it's a chilly and damp ride. Add the dusty dry wind and you'll soon learn to dress for the ride, esp a scarf to cover mouth and nose. And learn to trust Allah, for it's a wild weaving amongst cars, buses, motorbikes and bicycles.

Yes bicycles. Astounding to see bicycles piled 4 feet high and as much as 6 feet wide with bales of dry goods, sacks of concrete, bags of rice, bins of vegetables. Precariously balanced, they slowly pedal along as Mad Max traffic zooms by.

Small change is an issue - there isn't any. Banks will not cash American Express traveler's checks, the best solution for money exchange (at least this month) seems to be: open a Citibank account in the states and bring a debit card. Even with advance warning that you'll be in India for an extended visit, one person's bank froze her card after $500, worried her card had been stolen. So in addition to alerting your bank of where you are going and for how long, leave photocopies of your card with someone back home so they can get it reactivated for you.

Although the Cambio does take the travelers checks, like the banks, he will not give anything lower than 100, and 100s only with terse insistence. He returns the text book response: " India does not have anything smaller, only 500!" Persevere, because the problem is, most things you want throughout the day, like, taxis, drinking water, snacks and that lovely bracelet, are 10, 20 or 30R. A dollar is about 50R. So while "everything is cheap," good luck having a low enough paper and coin, 'cause, "no change, no change!" So the tendency is to do a quick calculation and think, it's only a dollar extra, I'll just pay 100." The concept of bargains is quickly lost, but then it is only a dollar or two extra to a person for whom that can mean the difference between food on the table tonight or sleeping with an empty belly.

The wheel is a fitting analogy for India. Swimming through the marketplaces of Nizamiddin, you see starkly the wheel of life. What we from the states would define as 'slum,' is a thriving neighborhood of mingled Muslim, Hindu & Christian living side by side. It is primarily Muslim, but there, tucked under that tree, see a tiny Hindu shrine, resplendent with requisite brilliant fabrics and metallic glitz. A few of us engage a private tour and are rewarded by access to inner windings of streets so narrow you can stand in the center and reach out to touch the house on either side of streets. For four hours we traverse tangled streets lined with sellers of produce, jewelry, fabrics, religious paraphernalia and foodcarts. Just steps from starving beggars a chicken seller decapitates, defoots and defeathers a purchase with agility and ease. In the time it takes for one of us to proclaim to the others, the deed is done. A waiting urchin runs with the feet around corner to another vendor selling just that. In the midst of the deep shadows of huddled buildings, the ever present smog, and unusually pervasive smog, weaves a tapestry of rich and royal hue, an ever shifting vision of a never ending view. Shawls and headscarves, fluorescent light wall clocks and prayer alarms with lenticular panoramas of a favorite mosque or saint, all together light up this cavernous labarynth.

Faces float to the surface of awareness, faces of the newly born bobbing next to faces of despair, of lingering diseases of death, and of hope. Always hope. Western sensibilities at first numbed by the filth, can I see past that veneer? If not, then I am truly lost. Lost to my own story.

Can I put my book on the shelf and watch myself turn blank pages that fill with fantastic script with every step, every breath. With each breath, a cacophony of smells: garlic and frying, spices and ofal, sickly sweet smell of putrification and of roses. Yes roses. Each breath, like Naked Lunch, shatters all paradigms, all frames of reference. As Hazrat Inayat Kahn suggested, "Shatter your ideas upon the rock of truth!"

This is Nizamidden: buzzing, swarming, flowing, heartful and woeful, simple and intricate, unassuming and imposing, trail of tears and trails of hope, the crush, the marketplace of stalls: meat hanging, deep fried chicken, grapes, melons, and oranges and lemons, large green pods like oversized peas, hanging hot peppers, chicken feet, astonishingly white cauliflowers, string beans and radishes, radicchio(!) Oh, and goats with sweaters, better dressed than some of the children.

Goats wearing sweaters? Yes, and one outfitted with a worn and patched designer blazer. It's important to keep your goat fashionable attired so that her energy goes to making milk rather than staying warm.

Embroidered head coverings, Arabic writings, hammered brass, and the sweet smell of roses. As the Darragh nears, increasingly, that sweet smell of roses. Purchase a paper cone of petals or a strand of perfect blooms, how, how, how is it they smell so sweet in the midst of all this? Perhaps the nose would not be suprised except for the contrast.

The darraghs. The real reason for my trip. Stepping across the thresshold of the compound which surrounds the tomb of Hazrat Inayat Kahn: through the looking glass, gladly. Even just inside, just in the vestibule where shoes are shed, the energy is at once eternal and intimate, quieting and catalizing. Through the pleasant garden, an oasis in the midst of living strife, and up a flight of stairs to the terrace and the shrine, drawn closer to the love with each unfaltering step. Circumambulating, then kneeling at his feet, with head pressed to cold marble, a massive jolt of energy rocks me, life force unfathominablek, all prevading love, nearly knocks me back on my heals and I am frozen in time and eternity for I don't know how long. As my awareness again registers the physicality of the others, I reluctantly withdraw to a secluded corner to meditate. Heart rush. Threads of truth. Awe some.

Later, around the corner at the tomb of Pir Vilayat, the feeling is mixed of sternness and that signature impish humor. "Get busy!" "And don't forget to laugh!" Tears this time of longing, his departure still keen. We meditate here on realizing that we are beings of light. Next the Darragh (tomb) of Nizamuddin Auliya is a mob scene, it is Thursday when hoards of the faithful come to begin their sabbath at sundown. Once again, that sense of losing the self to the sea of humanity, sensory overload, the flowers and fabrics, singing and praying, intensity and roses, always the roses.

Friday's return afforded us some peaceful time to sit with the quiet, persistant glow of the energy of this most revered saint. The men circumambulate inside the tomb, while women are relegated to pray on the porch. I'm aware of a brief grip of resentment now, and again later as we mere women are excluded from the throng who complete ablutions and enter the mosque for evening prayers. God, I think, would not be pleased by this fraternal snub. Despite the slight, the energy of this amazing man reaches beyond the jali wall, and we float in a sea of compassion. (Jali is intricate lattice work cut into thin slabs of stone, sometimes semi precious stones such as the alabaster at the Taj Mahal - the screens behind which women are hidden from view - to pray, to observe, and in court, to gather gossip) Nizamuddin Auliya is revered especially for helping the poor. Each day, the faithful brought gifts of abundant wealth to lay at his feet. By evening, he distributed every bit to the throngs of needy.

Trust, Allah will provide. Tomorrow the coffers will be once again filled.

The evening, the end of this most fullsome of days, brings us back to the shrine of Hazrat Inayat Kahn for a spell of Qawali - rhythmic tablas, woeful harmoniums and the rich cantilevered overlays of men's voices singing ecstasy.

There are many ways to be lost.