Thursday 19 -Traffic

Ohhhhhhhhhhhmyyyyyyyyyyyyygoddddddddddd I am in a video game.

Over Christmas my nephews introduced me to Temple Run. (thanks, guys!) Project yourself a blonde, wripped Rambo, hurtling along crumbling wall-tops high above a tapestry of jungle tangle. Leap bulging tree roots, whip around dead-end corners, launch over wide chasms, all the while evading corner-of-your-eye incoming that are the stuff of William Shatner's lofty nightmares. Talley your wins in gold coins awarded for feats of superhuman agility.

Slow this down to an excruciating crawl all the way from the airport. Motor bikes and 3-wheeled taxis squeeze between our behemoth bus and delivery vans, SUVs, other buses. I'm thinking no catalytic converters here, the smog is palpable. I swear those little guys morph to gell-state to get thru impossible slivers of space - you can't call them gaps - then rematerialize as scratch-and-dent specials on the front side of the traffic jam and roll on.

Reaching Connaught, shift to warp speed, as if to make up for lost time... fast forward!

Delhi traffic. Laughter is the only sane response. Choose to experience the adrenaline rush as exileration. Woah.

Then there's walking. Hhmmm, this feels familiar, like the bike lanes of Philadelphia.

Walking. Just like those falsely acclaimed bicycle lanes, these walkways go along smoothly enough, sometimes even nicely dressed with (dusty) trees and benches. But wait, there's a vehicle parked on the sidewalk, and a little further along, a series of street vendor stalls block the way completely, and then just around a bend the path serrupticously disappears. Just like that. Leaving you stranded to either float above to the next length of walk, or plunge into the fray of the raging torrent of motor vehicle traffic. Transport used to be mostly bicycles, bicycle taxis, and bicycle carts, they say. Now it's a screeching, belching, writhing mass of horn blowing chaos.

Once we've had a chance to wash up, our next priority is local cell phones for everyone so we can pull the more adventuresome back to the fold from time to time without breaking the bank with AT&T or Verizon. It's "just a five minute walk," so off we go. Seven little ducks in a row trailing along behind our pied piper, Monauge, who parts the seas for us to cross 3-6 lanes of the weaving, darting mayhem five times to get to the Noika kiosk - but wait, aren't we now just across the street and around the corner from where we began? How is it that we forded all those traffic circles and descended thru a semi-constructed subterranean walk-way to get here???

It's wonderful to have a friend to orchestrate our purchases. Six men packed into that tiny kiosk, each vying to make the really big sale, shouting, gesturing, practically throwing phones and options at us. Monauge reels it in, collects passports, photos, applications and rupees, hands out phones and owner's manuals (mysteriously, in English) through a mind-boggling half hour transaction that feels both sped-up and slow motion at the same time.

Our mission accomplished, one of our number meekly asks, "do people ever get hit crossing the street like that?" Monauge opts to call for cars to bring us back around the corner to home base.


The Blue Triangle, which turns out to be a YMCA, has an on-site cafeteria. Desperado lunch had been ... while belly filling, barely tolerable white bread cheese and tomatoe sandwhiches that emerged, two at a time, at 20 minute intervals. I pictured the kitchen equiped with little more than one George Foreman grill. Lunch for twelve just didn't work. We vote for a restaurant for dinner. So, it's back out there, now in the dark.

Back to Temple Run. Now place your action figure in a vehicle and give over all control to a non-English speaking stranger at the wheel. Well, call it a vehicle if you like. Three wheels, a post&lintel metal tube frame draped with remnants of plastic and sail cloth. No windows. Heck, no doors. Barely a seat for two to squeeze onto. Belching black and yellow. Rattling, bumping and swaying. Ohmygod, ohmygod. Oh, right, choose exhilaration, and laughter. And wonder of wonders, every pair of us ends up at the right place! RajDhan restaurant.

Ooooooooo, the delights of the tongue that reward us! Thalis - think tapas back in Phillie - but these a delectable, fire-works extravaganza in my mouth. Each of us has a large tray set up with little cup-sized bowls that never seem to empty. Descreetly hovering waiters continuously scoop soups, sauces and 16 ways to combine steamed and fried veggies, legumes, beans and rice. This one's tangy, that one sweet, most a version of hot. Is that hot on the lips, warm on the tongue, permeating after-glow, or a symphony blend? Small discs of bread drizzled with ghee serve as utensils. Satiated, the end of our meal is pleasantly bookmarked by a replay of how it began - with a ceremonial washing, deliciously warm water poured over hands from a brass pitcher into an ornate bowl. (and the bill came to less than $60 for the eleven of us)

Of course, the fare back to our rooms is double, but at $2 instead of $1, who cares. A thin mattress on a wooden platform, oh, how I miss my memory foam! Whomever dropped the word to bring ear-plugs, "good advice, thanks." The din of traffic is broken only by the haunting voices of intermittent calls-to-prayer throughout the cold night.

Yawn, that's it for my middle-of-the-night-jet-lag writing session. Morning's call will be early, to the Sikh Temple.