Oh, yes think twice, it's just another day
For you and me in paradise
Oh, yes think twice, it's just another day
For you, you and me in paradise
Just think about it, just think about it ...
I'm not a big fan of Phil Collins, but some of his best songs deserve to be on every bestseller list.
For example Another Day in Paradise.
Is it cynical to speak of paradise in a juggernaut like Delhi? No. The following passages explain what I mean.
She calls out to the man on the street
"Sir, can you help me?
It's cold and I've now here to sleep
Is there somewhere you can tell me?
He walks on, doesn't look back
He pretends he can't hear her
He starts to whistle as he crosses the street
She's embarrassed to be there
...
We are observers, uninvolved, cold, distant. Aliens. Voyeurs, coming from paradise, returning to paradise.
Those who claim otherwise have not understood anything …
Back where life rages
Today I say goodbye to Delhi. Farewell to India.
Maybe the feeling of the last day makes it somehow easier to walk through the thick smog veil hanging over the city all day long. Delhi is said to have replaced Beijing as the city with the worst air pollution.
New Delhi is the city with the world's highest airborne particulate matter. This is 45% higher than in Beijing, which is also known for its extreme smog and takes second place. In 2006, when the air quality was even better, 40% of the city's children had respiratory problems. The main cause is seen to be excessive vehicle traffic. In March 2015, a court ruled that air pollution in New Delhi was "out of control". Attempts to solve the problem by expanding local public transport and converting buses and auto rickshaws to gas operation did not lead to any improvement in the situation before 1400 new vehicles were registered every day, many of them diesel-powered. Extreme air pollution is becoming an obstacle to growth as foreign investors find it difficult to get employees to move to the city. In 2016 and 2019, driving bans were issued for a short time, which alternately applied to vehicles with even or odd license plates. In autumn and winter, the pollution increased further because of the agricultural slash and burn. (Wikipedia)
Anything but a walk in healthy air. But for me it only means a short detour into a kind of death zone, while this represents an everyday imposition and danger for millions of city dwellers.
Connaught Place
So a last walk through the streets and alleys, today in modern New Delhi, first to Connaught-Place and then along the Janpath Road out to India Gate and back on Gandhi Marg.
The visible difference between extreme poverty and exorbitant wealth is nowhere more apparent than at Connaught Place. The walk from Old Delhi to Connaught Place is a short distance trip between two completely different sides of India. You start in the midst of chaos, in the cacophony of Old Delhi, where poverty stares out of the eyes, stroll along a long road, nod to the families living on the sidewalks, and slowly and almost unnoticed you leave poor India and reach the other India, where not poverty but shocking wealth resides.
You cross the multi-lane road running around Connaught Place in a hurry, step through one of the entrances and for a moment you think you have landed in another world. A world of money, of beautiful things, of beautiful people, of displayed wealth. The prices in the numerous boutiques where tout Delhi and its Jeunesse Dorée meet are no different from those on Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, on the contrary, they seem to be even higher. But that doesn't seem to bother anyone …
Connaught Place is the hub of New Delhi, being in stark contrast to the crowded centre of Old Delhi. The square, with its raised facades and classical columns, was designed by the chief architect of the Indian government Robert Tor Russell (1886-1953) and is one of the few quarters of the city not conceived by Lutyens and Baker.
The square has been designed very generously as a classic shopping centre. Similar to the parliamentary headquarters to the south, the shops and offices are housed in magnificent buildings with arcades. The Connaught Place accommodates an immense touristical offer, a large number of hotels and restaurants. (Wikipedia)
The India Gate
Over a cup of coffee in one of the fancy little restaurants I watch life on another planet for a while until it becomes too much for me and I escape from so much money and power.
The roads towards the India Gate are now wide and well maintained, even the sidewalks are for once uninhabited and free of parked motorcycles, bikes, TukTuks and other things blocking the way. It is – how surprising – very hot, but considering that heat and sun will soon be a distant memory, I enjoy the burning sunbeams.
The India Gate looms in the distance, a surreal appearance in the midst of green, well-tended meadows. It was designed after the pattern of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but one searches in vain for the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
Not surprisingly, I am not the only visitor on this sunny day.
Back to paradise
So this is the last day, as always with miserable reliability. Of course not quite, because tomorrow morning I'll fly to Doha, where I'll have to wait about eighteen hours for the onward flight thanks to my stupidity, until I'll finally be allowed to complete the remaining part to Zurich on Saturday morning (stupidity because I pressed the booking button before having read the travel program).
So I'm waiting for an incredibly boring and completely unnecessary stay in one of the places in the world where I don't even want to be buried. But who knows, it is precisely these unpredictable things that could reveal something surprising. Let's wait and see.
But India has once again managed to get me on its side, and once again I am convinced that there is no other country, not even close, that offers such incredible diversity. You can love it, like me, or hate it, like many others who swear to spend the rest of their lives at home rather than travel to India one more time. It is pointless to think about why it is one way or the other. You love it or you hate it. There's not much in between. But I'm sure we'll hear a lot more about this country. Either way ...
Then see you tomorrow, in the Doha Purgatory.
PS (not at all) matching song: Jimi Hendrix Experience - All along the Watchtower
And here the journey continues ... to Doha purgatory
