The Lazy Cherub Enigma: Delhi Meets the Jedi Queen

September 4, 2015

Another journey, another blog. So let’s begin at the beginning – airplane movie reviews! For this first leg I bring you the following:

True Story: If you are a journalist and a guy in prison for killing his family asks for writing tips DON’T DO IT. Killer ends up writing for New York Times and you spend the rest of your life holed up in your cabin in Montana mired in ethical conflict and filled with self-loathing.

San Andres: A 10.0 earthquake of every Hollywood movie stereotype starring the Rock and that guy from Sideways. Napa Valley is all that survives.

Terminator Genysis: I’ll be back and this time I’m bringing Mother of Dragons. Shit gets done.

We arrived at Heathrow on what we found out is the busiest day EVER of the year – the last day before school starts. This meant that clearing customs and immigration was a 90-minute wait in a line up that snaked its way to the end of the terminal and then back up again. Fun times. We had no checked bags to declare which, when you also disclose you are on a 2-month trip to India results in a lot of shady side eye. Who takes a 2-month trip with no checked bags?!?! Only those who are magnificently eccentric or terrorists. Overnighted at an airport hotel where we slept for 15 hours and ate lamb and mint crisps for dinner because night flight jet lag messes you up real good as far as normal eating. Then it was off to catch the next flight to Delhi. For this flight we were able to access the new executive lounge at Terminal 5. Unlimited lattes, hard liquor and mini bagels and lox. Oh, and facials, manis, pedis, A STEAM ROOM and pods of isolation for being anti-social in. I was tempted to tank up on prosecco but doing so at 5:30 in the morning seemed rather gauche. Civilized people wait until 9 am to break open the champagne and gin and tonics. Shortly after that someone dropped their baby while trying to juggle their Gucci bags and champagne glass at the table. No screams of pain just the painful thud of over consumption brought to the fore.

The flight from London to Heathrow was almost entirely empty. The plane “may” have been a third full and that would be a pushing it. So those of us who were on it stretched out and took rows of seats to ourselves to lay back and watch bad Hollywood or bad Bollywood movies. So without further adieu, the second installment of airplane movie reviews!

The Killers: Sean Penn plays a guy with anger management issues who hits women. But its all good - he’s black ops and that woman had it coming to her.

Ex Machina: AI is a woman and you are not God. Unless you are Oscar Isaacs in full lumber sexual beard dancing in silk pajamas. THEN you are a God.

A Little Chaos: No one does permaculture gardening like a 17^th century woman besot by grief. Next time you wander the gardens at the Palace of Versailles remember it was the kings’ gay brother and his beard that really made that place special.

Arrived in Delhi at 11 pm and began the process of finding an ATM that would actually let you take out more than 10,000 rupees and then book a cab. BTW, Customs and Immigrations have a list of 6 things you cannot under any circumstances bring into the country. These are (in this order):

1) Maps and literature where Indian external boundaries are shown incorrectly. (So if you’re a cartographer planning on having a seminar on maps of the world circa 1492 you are SOL if you want to have India in your Power Point Presentation)

2) Psychotropic drugs (leave the mushrooms and E at home. Just by K and morphine at the local pharmacy once you get here! LOL!)

3) Goods violating intellectual property (No knock off Iphones or bad science literature).

4) Counterfeit currency (obviously)

5) Wild Life Products (No lion hunts for you!)

6) Live Birds (This means all birds. So those of you with Service Finches or Therapy Cockatoos you will have to rely on Ativan and coloring books if you’re in India).

Along the way I needed a cold drink so I found a drink machine that must have be one hell of a Pepsi product because guarding it was an Indian Army sergeant with a machine gun. He warily moved out of the way so I could get a diet Pepsi. Oh, did I mention that when we paid for the taxi we had the “that was only a 100 rupee note” scam tried on us? The fair is 470 rupee so naturally, most people hand over a 500 to pay. The teller very quickly squirrels the 500 under the counter and drops a 100-rupee note on the counter top. Chitchats a bit to throw you off and then asks politely for 370 rupee more to cover the fare. We already knew this was normal so Ken reminded him “When I handed you the 500 I confirmed with you it was 500 so you owe me 30 not I owe you 370!.” Then it was an attempt at quick recovery by saying “Oh I meant to ask for 70 so I could give you a 100 in change.” Now it was off to the outside mayhem with our pre-paid taxi chit that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES were we to give the driver until we arrived at our destination. There must be a billion taxis outside the airport all ready to kill in order to get your fare. We had no idea which cabs were legit and no one seemed to know where our hotel was. Eventually we caved and went with a guy driving a mini van that looked like he fashioned it together himself out of old tin cans and cardboard. Worst cab ride ever. No air conditioning and his windows did not roll down. On the plus side he did find our hotel, which is located right across the street from the ginormous Hanuman statue and “Fun House.” Honest to god this thing looks like a 1980’s carnival house of horrors over run by stray dogs and homeless people. So yeah, I will be checking that place out for sure! LOL!!

Last year during the Silk Road Odyssey from Hell, you might all remember we met a Belgian family at the Temple of the Screaming monk. They now live here in Delhi and this allowed us to have a reunion. And what reunion would not be complete if we didn’t go to another temple and get screamed at. Well, technically it wasn’t us this time but there was a moment when we saw a yellow shirt in the crowd and we were sure Ken had caused another international incident with his camera. We enjoyed our stroll through Qutb Minar filled with parakeets, chipmunks and eagles. If only it was a billion degrees Celsius with a humidity factor of infinity. We spent the evening at this amazing place called “The Social” on the Hauz Khas district. I LOVE THIS PLACE!!! It is an old warehouse with levels upon levels of great seating and great food. There are even “anti social rooms” for when you just want to drink by yourself and brood.

Today we had planned to hang out at a café at the Khan Market but Ken had a dental emergency. This is where having diplomats as friends pays off. Babette to the rescue! Our Belgian connections got us a referral to Dr. Poonam Batra – Dentist of the Diplomats and the Canadian Ambassador. We went hard-core and took an auto rickshaw to this place. Talk about taking your life in your hands. It was a great experience except for when the drive took us on the freeway. Yep – imagine being on the Deerfoot or some interstate in the USA in a rickshaw. Fortunately traffic ever gets faster than 40 km! Ken felt like royalty in that office and I loved that Dr. Poonam was a woman with about 10 male dental assistants and office staff willingly doing her bidding. $80 CDN dollars later for a procedure that would cost 5 times that back home and were off to the Khan Market for lattes and Internet!

Well no.

There are lattes but no Internet. Eventually after pounding the pavement we ended up at the Market Café, which has Internet but also has the worst salad ever. Like EVER. Iceberg lettuce should be banned as a food item and people should go to prison if they use it as the main ingredient in a Greek salad. But there is Internet here and air con so I can suck it up. After all, there is a Starbucks in Connaught Circle!

Random Observation of India So Far:

They love animals. There are lots of birds and stray dogs in this city. The dogs are fat because everyone feeds them. It isn’t uncommon to see a street person sharing his/her meal with a stray dog and there are always water dishes left out for the dogs and birds to drink from. You see a fair amount of trans women begging at stoplights but the locals think they just “dress up for money” and go home to a wife and kids and wear normal clothes.

We meet the rest of the group tonight. I’m feeling good about this. Coffee withdrawal is not as bad as I thought and I am staying across the street to the “Mighty Monkey” (Jhandewalan Hanuman Temple). Tomorrow we head out for a tour of Old Delhi and I just read that at the Kashmere Gate there is a plethora of muscled male wrestlers willing to display their prowess. Can it get any better than that in Delhi?