Coronation Park part I: Construction park

Way out north, there is a
statuary graveyard. When India gained it's independence, there were several British statues that found themselves to be homeless. So they were moved all together to a new location.

In the move and over time, the identities of most of these statues were lost. Former viceroys, military officers... the whole place was forgotten and unvisited.

Until recently, when the Delhi centennial was in the news and someone paid attention to it.
Then it was decided to clean up the park, trim down the shrubbery and make it a nice, visitable place.

The whole statue graveyard/construction site park is kind of amusing.

It should be nice when it's actually finished.

But for the time being, we were walking around amongst the mud and dirt and unlaid bricks. We would not have been let in to a place like that in the US.
I find it very ironic to walk around somewhere with forgotten statues next to piles of brick next to big machinery.
Ironic how history turns out. It's not even close to what the original creators of the statues had in mind.

Work in progress

The architecture at Jantar Mantar is just as wild as usual.

But right now there is work in progress to keep the monument restoration in repair.

Much of it is being done by this brick carrying lady.

Brick carrying ladies fascinate me.

Stacking bricks

It's kind of fascinating to me how you can stack brick on top of brick on top of brick, and then it's possible for person to live on top of person to live on top of person.
Rectangles of brick that make up rectangle boxes of rooms that separate us from one another and give us some semblance of our own space and privacy.
Delhi: as far as the eye can see is
brick stacked on brick stacked on brick--person stacked on person stacked on person...

Incredible.

Sand trap

There is a lot of construction happening around the city these days. So there are piles of sand and brick and whatnot everywhere.
Near my neighborhood there is a stoplight with building going on around it. One evening as some friends and I drove through, we noticed a little Omni van stuck in a sand pit that had recently developed. The driver had spun the tires and dug himself in pretty deep--halfway up the hubcaps. So my friends pulled over and the two men in the car got out to help.
Who knows how long the man had been there, trying to get himself out. The rest of the traffic just drove by and stared at him in his predicament.
My friends lifted his little Omni van and he drove away.
I wonder if he thought to thank them...

Random

I never get over the things I see while in an auto ride through the city.
Here's a list:

• Girl slaps guy at bus station
• Man with chicken under his arm
• Man on the back of scooter holding a ladder straight up in the air
• Construction worker digs around dog
• Horse carrying bricks stumbles over speed bump, drops bricks all over the street
  

And you know what else? Amitabh Bachchan called me. (Okay, so it was just a mobile phone advertisement.)

WOmen at work

The sign (though admittedly difficult to see) reads "Men at Work". Yet, if you notice, the women are the active ones.
These women stacking bricks on their heads continue to fascinate me.

Bricks on her head

The neighbors are adding two new storys to their building.
There is a woman working there whose job it is to bring the mason bricks and cement. She starts down at street level, loads the bricks up on her head and then carries them up four flights of stairs.
I'm so glad I don't have her job.

The other neighborhood construction

Mine is not the only apartment in the neighborhood which is being worked on. There are several others nearby adding on a room, a new floor, or whatever other changes and improvements they are making.
I find the half-hearted deconstruction interesting, but it was the process of stacking bricks, the sound of it, that had me fascinated.