Home » India » New Delhi, Saturday the 14th of August

I woke up feeling rather worse for wear and sadly felt the same all day long. Delhi Belly has the name for a good reason. Luckily, I have a pharmacy full of pills, all very colorful and fun looking but with rather depressing names. Under instructions from my mother, I took a whole cocktail of pills and felt a little better. By the time I had a quick breakfast of bananas and espresso (the imperial does the best espresso in town!) and went for a quick swim and rest at the swimming pool, it was already lunch time. I went for a walk back to Connaught place and met Ahtor, who wanted to polish my sandals. In every country of the world I have been to with my sandals, I have always been proposed by street shoe shiners to polish my sandals. Considering there is not one bit of leather on my sandals, I have always been intrigued by what they would do if I said yes. So, I succumbed to the curiosity and did say yes to his proposal. He took the sandals off my feet, gave me his old ones to wear during the meantime and played with mine for a while, pulling at every strap and opening and closing them numerous times, as if to test the sound effects. I was about to take them back and laugh at him when he took out a strong needle and wire and went about completely repairing my sandals sawing and stitching every single seam and corner. I was amazed. He did a marvelous job and they are now as new, good for another 10 years at the very least.
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New Delhi, Saturday the 14th of August

Degrubenc
2005-12-09 17:31:24

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I woke up feeling rather worse for wear and sadly felt the same all day long. Delhi Belly has the name for a good reason. Luckily, I have a pharmacy full of pills, all very colorful and fun looking but with rather depressing names. Under instructions from my mother, I took a whole cocktail of pills and felt a little better. By the time I had a quick breakfast of bananas and espresso (the imperial does the best espresso in town!) and went for a quick swim and rest at the swimming pool, it was already lunch time. I went for a walk back to Connaught place and met Ahtor, who wanted to polish my sandals. In every country of the world I have been to with my sandals, I have always been proposed by street shoe shiners to polish my sandals. Considering there is not one bit of leather on my sandals, I have always been intrigued by what they would do if I said yes. So, I succumbed to the curiosity and did say yes to his proposal. He took the sandals off my feet, gave me his old ones to wear during the meantime and played with mine for a while, pulling at every strap and opening and closing them numerous times, as if to test the sound effects. I was about to take them back and laugh at him when he took out a strong needle and wire and went about completely repairing my sandals sawing and stitching every single seam and corner. I was amazed. He did a marvelous job and they are now as new, good for another 10 years at the very least.

Rather stupidly, I decided to have a meal at the Gaylord Restaurant, also an Icon in the Delhi Culinary scene. It had just reopened after the ceiling caved in and killed a tourist. The food was delicious as ever and I forgot all about my sickness, eating everything I could get my hands on and more. I had a feast and it was only when I retired to the toilets after the meal that I realized my mistake.

Plucking my courage, I decided to go round and walk to the India Gate and see what was happening there. It was, as usual, the same monumental avenue built by the British to impress the world: long, green, straight, with the imposing red bricked presidential palace at one end (the old palace of the Vice-Roy) and the arch of liberation at the other end.

It was a pleasant walk, the people played cricket on the lawns, kids flew kites, mothers set up pic-nics, grandmothers surveyed the whole scene with what seemed to be a sense of disapproval for the behavior of the youngs, etc… Everything seemed to be as it should be. I walked on confidently to the Palace only to be turned away by great, big guards in old British Raj uniforms and told to mind my own way.

As I returned to the hotel and met up with Lionel at the 1911 terrace, I also met an English chap called Phil. He is a British doctor doing a year of training in an Indian public hospital. We discussed at length the medical habits of the Indians. What he told me was most interesting: apparently, Indians only go to see the doctor or to hospital when the suffering has become unbearable and the disease is too far progressed to be able to reverse it. When they are at hospital, they never complain, scream or make life difficult, they trust the doctor implicitly with all of his decisions and will never contest it. The only problem is that they never follow the treatments at home. The other battle Phil had to face was the complete lack of hygiene in the hospitals: the doctors barely wash their hands before an operation and are reluctant to observe the simplest medical hygiene, such as closing the windows and doors of the operating theatre or even not eating and smoking near the patients.

We also discussed at length cricket and Oxford (he went to Christ Church College) and, before we knew, the early hours had crept upon us and he retired to his flat while I took another healthy cocktail of multicolored pills in the hope it would make me feel better.