King George's legacy

A friend and I wandered through an old hotel in Delhi and I found this photograph on the wall--evidence that the statue of King George V used to inhabit the chatri near India Gate.
It reminded me that I wanted to go visit the statue and see how the park was coming along.

In some ways, I was not surprised by what I found:  the park was still under construction, though it had been over a year.

But I was surprised by other things.
King George was all wrapped up and bound in black plastic.

As were some of the other statues.
It's disturbing, isn't it?

The construction workers and their families had "moved in" and were slowly improving the surroundings.  The scrub brush was all gone, replaced by granite and marble walkways.  But there was a long way to go yet.
Before they are through there will be an amphitheater and a 31 meter flag pole to tower over the coronation pillar left behind by the British.

The only news I could find said the park might be ready in a year's time.  The authorities were also hard at work trying to come up with a name to replace "coronation park", something to be proud of.

I understand the love/hate tension with King George.  And I admire the efforts of the park committee--they could just throw out all the old, unwanted statues and erase this part of their history. 
Instead, they're going to turn it into a nice place to play cricket--admirable.

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.

No littering...soon

This article caught my attention:
MCD plans new, stricter anti-littering law soon.

News to me: there are already laws against spitting, littering and urinating in public!?
No way. When are those enforced?

If there are fines against demolition and construction waste lying around, the city of Delhi has to fine itself.

This sentence is funny to me: "Besides, all the pet owners who let their pets out into the streets to litter would be charged R500 by the civic body."
The pets are the ones throwing the trash around--of course! Those sneaky pet owners. Why waste time teaching your dog to fetch, when he could be the one to take out the trash. ;)

Restoration elves

There is restoration happening at Humayan's Tomb.
Inconvenience regretted.

But that doesn't mean anything is closed, just don't mind them as you come through the entrance and walk around all the dirt and rubble.

And don't mind their boots in the walkway, either.

Avoid the scaffolding, though, it is probably not the safest.

Then there was the place behind the green screen where we could hear the sounds of elves with hammers.
Really, that's what it sounded like.
A dozen or so men with hammers, chiseling away at slabs of sandstone for the restoration work.

Strategic signage

There are new Commonwealth signs all over the city. Some of them are very clever, like these Delhi ones:


Some of them are funny. A silent Delhi? Road code? Ha ha ha.

And some of them are strategic.
You see, Delhi was not finished with all the preparations in time for the games. Things are not quite as clean as hoped. So what I have noticed is that there are rows and rows of bright colored new CWG signs lining the streets. I used to see piles of sand, stacks of bricks, broken car parts, unfinished construction, and gutters full of trash in these same places.
It's not that it has all been cleaned up, but it is hidden behind the new signs.
Interesting strategy.

How long do these signs stay up, I wonder?

I hope that those in charge of this particular "clean city" move keep in mind that a white-washed sandcastle is still made of dirt.

Commonwealth countdown

The Commonwealth Games are coming.
They've been coming for several years now. The countdown dealy says there are 43 days, 6 hours and some left before they begin.
And I am beginning to be excited about this. It's probably kind of crazy to be excited--it's going to turn the city upside down. It already has in so many ways: construction, construction everywhere.

Today I found this article about the tennis competitors from India. It contains an amusing phrase: "India's revolting tennis players". Ha ha. I think the newspaper editor should have paid better attention to that one.

I've been making plans to attend some of the events. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity, right?
Are you familiar with lawnbowling? Me neither. I might go check it out.
Otherwise, I'd like to see some of the diving and the track and field events.

They are coming. I'll let you know how it unfolds...

Truck stop

It's the perfect place to take a nap, right?
Park next to a construction site and lie down under your truck.
It's also a good spot to do a bit of laundry.

Ah, India

Serendipitious orchestration

I just lived through a day orchestrated to bring us to Mexican food--good Mexican food.
Our plan today, my friend and I, was to go to a certain market where there was supposed to be a nice bookstore and a really good (dare-we-hope: authentic) Mexican restaurant. Good Mexican food is a rarity on this side of the world.
We found the bookstore. It was as expected. Not fantastic, but had books.
Now it was time to eat.
We found all the signage for the restaurant we wanted to go to, but where was the entrance?
"Oh that place is finished," said the guard we asked.
"Finished?"
"Finished."
Sad, sad news. No Mexican for lunch.
We found a coffee shop to eat at before we melted and returned to my house.

Meanwhile, my friend's husband was supposed to be leaving on a plane. But the plane's airconditioning was broken and they were sitting out on the tarmac in 104 degrees unable to leave. Several hours later they deplaned all the passengers and moved them to a 5 star hotel in the north of the city.
A 5 star hotel? Hmm. This might be our only opportunity to go see what it's like inside...
Our "only choice", then, was to head there as soon as nap time for her one year old was over.

Riding in autos is hard, tiring work. But that's what we ended up in.
The call to the taxi to take us to the fancy hotel was at 4:20pm. The dispatcher said: "There is no taxi available for half an hour. 5 o'clock it will come for you."
That was very bad math and not half an hour. But I agreed.
At 5:15 I called the driver and went through extensive directions on how to get to my house. Twenty minutes later I called and asked the driver where he was. The name of the location he gave me was about half an hour away.
What!
Okay, cancel that taxi service.

Now what do we do? It would be fun to go see the 5 star hotel that we wouldn't normally have opportunity to go see. But it was getting late. We would have to have time to come back for the kid's bedtime.
Our new plan? Walk out of the neighborhood and find our own taxi. If we can't get one, we walk a little further and end up at the Chinese restaurant nearby.
As we walked along, an auto passed us asking where we wanted to go? An auto wasn't in the plan. Because it was hot and we were tired and we didn't want to over-tire the kid before we'd even gotten anywhere. But there was the auto...
With a reasonable price.
We looked at each other.
We took it.
So we didn't exactly arrive at the five star hotel looking as if we belonged there, but they let us in anyway.
We walked through the lobby (unimpressive) and put our feet in the pool (slightly impressive). Then we headed out again to find dinner.
We thought we would go to a nearby pizza place and we got an auto to go there. I told him which block to take us to and when he pulled up, what did I see? A sign for Sancho's, the Mexican restaurant we'd been trying to find at lunch time.
"There's Sancho's," I said.
My friend misheard me to say, "There's a sandpit." Which was also true. Because all in front of the restaurant was construction and sand and a great big hole--no way for us to walk through.
The driver, though, showed us the path where people were walking through the construction site.
So my friend and I stood outside the Mexican restaurant and had this short conversation:
"We came here for pizza, but there's Sancho's. Which one do you want to go to?"
"Well, we know what pizza tastes like, we haven't tried Sancho's."
"Right. Let's go."
When we stepped inside and were told they had a baby chair, we knew we had arrived. A marvelous baby chair. Even though I had to eat with one hand while I held my fingers on the latch to keep the tray down and the kid from escaping.
That, and the excellent food with real cheese and real sour cream made all we had been through throughout the day totally worth it to end up here.
Disappointment at lunch time.
Waiting and waiting for a taxi that never showed up.
A plane with air conditioning that didn't work.
A visit to a 5 star hotel.
A search for pizza because we hadn't been successful at lunch.
It had all brought us here.
"That's what you call 'serendipity'," I said.
"No," replied my friend, "That's what you call the orchestration of a good God who knew exactly what we needed."
Absolutely.

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.

Inventive vocabulary

Here's a new word for you: upgradation. Did you know you could make up words and put them on signs throughout the city?
Happens all the time.
The AnswerTips vocabulary feature on this page (which is awesome--double click on any word and check it out) doesn't recognize the word. It will give you no helpful information. Try the word 'inventive', though--it will even tell you how to pronounce it.
Nothin' for 'upgradation.
But: that doesn't stop the construction folk from digging a hole in the ground and putting up a sign about it so they can go away and leave it there unattended for a week.

Neighbors' construction progress

Have you wondered about the progress of the neighbors' building project?
No?
Here's an update anyway:
The brick lady is no longer around. Instead there is a new group of men with drills and marble sanders. They are much noisier and they work for about twelve hours a day, 8am-8pm. They are also now assuming the structure can stand on its own and are removing the supports.
It's some of the fastest construction work I've ever seen in India.

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.