First venture into New Delhi

We wandered into Delhi today, started at the Red Fort. We took the metro in, we’re about 50 km from it, so it took a long time. We got to see a lot of the surrounding area as the metro rails are elevated. It ranged from ag fields to a tent city as we headed into the city. We were the only foreigners on every train we were on, and we definitely got a lot of stares. Indian men tend to stare at women, especially foreign women. On top of that, Ben and I tower over almost everyone by a good 6-10 inches. One kid stared at us wide-eyed for a full ten minutes! =)

The Red Fort was built in the 17th century; it was the residence of Mughal Emperors. It’s a ginormous property–lots of courtyards and built “tanks” (dug-in holes that would hold water) along with many buildings. We hit our 10,000 step quota very quickly. Most of it is sandstone and marble

After the Red Fort, we headed to Raj Ghat (“royal steps” or “King’s Bank”), a memorial to Mahatma Ghandi. Today was not our best coordination effort. Normally, we do quite well in using public transportation and walking to see a city as well as the sights/tourist spots. Today was a test of our endurance and frogger ability to dodge traffic. I don’t think New Delhians believe in sidewalks. We had to get creative and sidestep a lot of…stuff. By the end of the day, we were crosswalk experts. No walk signals, you’re on your own to decide when to go, and when you do start, don’t stop! We survived the last roundabout to head into the Shantivan park. That was a nice break, to walk through a park. What we didn’t do was measure the distance from Red Fort to Raj Ghat beforehand–not the smartest. So we walked a lot more than intended and ended our tourist day after seeing the memorial. 9 1/2 miles is not the most we’ve ever walked in a day, but it was still a long haul.

I wondered if all the Gandhi’s in this park were related to Mahatma, and it turns out they are not. They are all related to each other–Indira and Rajiv–however. Feroze Ghandy changed the spelling of his name to Gandhi to align with Mahatma and the independence movement in 1930. Indira married Feroze, thus the political Gandhi family.

For those that may not know, Mahatma Gandhi led a non-violent movement to gain independence from Britain. He was a member of the Indian Congress. His given name was Mohandas. Mahatma means great-souled or venerable in Sanskrit. He was shot and killed in 1948 by a Hindu that felt he was too accommodating to Muslims.

We returned to the hotel to find that last night must have been the Indian version of a rehearsal lunch/dinner. It could have been a Mehendi ceremony; or, it could be two different weddings that we’ve seen. Just after we returned, we started hearing a constant drum beat. We look out to see a long procession with singing and dancing. As Ben said, “progress is not the goal of this.” It took them about half an hour to walk 100 yards, stopping frequently to dance.