MO Solo

It’s Thursday; Ben has his conference today and tomorrow. I decided to venture out by myself. The air quality is worse than it’s been, see below. I did take a face mask but didn’t end up using it much. I wore it in the morning some, but it cleared up by the time I started walking around Delhi.

I talked to Neha this morning, she’s with guest relations at the hotel. She gave me the wonderful suggestion to see the elephant sanctuary. She told me about an Indian craft week happening near the airport. I ran out of time today, I really wanted to check it out. It sounded right up my alley.

I was nervous about venturing out on my own with everything I’ve read and heard about women in India, especially the concerns from foreign travelers. After seeing how Ben and I were basically ignored while walking around Delhi, I figured I’d be ok. The metro has a ladies only car, so I used that today. I did get a little turned around outside the metro stop for Jantar Mantar, but this is nothing new for me. It’s a running joke for Ben and me–I never pick the right way from the subway. Even when I’ve gone the same route for work multiple times, something trips me up like using a different exit. Let’s just say I’m used to backtracking in cities. =)

I made it to Jantar Mantar, an observatory in New Delhi built by a ruler in the 18th century. It’s one of five such places built by this emperor. It’s in a park, different instruments to measure date and time using celestial bodies, mainly the sun and moon. He wanted to predict the movement of the sun, moon and planets.

I wish it were more interactive to see how it all worked, but I understand they don’t want people on the structures to preserve them. The main sloping structure is a sundial, to measure time. This may be the largest sundial I’ve seen…well, maybe Sundial Bridge is. Either way, it’s large. I wonder which is more accurate, a smaller or larger sundial, or does it matter?

It was hard to get a good idea visually how this instrument worked. It measures the azimuth and altitude of the target. Below is a view from the top and side.

This was a calendar, they had one for the sun and one for the moon…or so I believe if I understood the guard correctly.

This is the most iconic structure, probably because of it’s pretty and unique design. It’s called the Misra Yantra which means mixed instrument. It’s a combination of 5 instruments used to determine the shortest and longest day of the year. It calculates meridians, so it can determine when noon is in other cities.

While writing this post, I remembered to look up the half hour time zones. India and Venezuela are not the only two countries with half hour zones. In fact, there are many. Newfoundland is a half hour zone, -3:30. Most of the others are in Asia and Australia. There are also some with 45 minute zones; however, I didn’t see any :15 zones. I guess that’s cutting it too short…

I went back after this because I didn’t want to miss Ben’s presentation. Plus, I was hungry. I only ate a portion of my lunch because an Indian chipmunk-squirrel was eyeing my food and getting braver by the second. He had friends, I was becoming outnumbered. Ben did great! He presented on a paper he’d written last semester, and it’s published in a book. Great job, Ben, I’m really proud of you!