The Dirtiest Place in Delhi

Our cab ride – yes, they have cabs in Delhi – from the train station to Paharganj, where we hoped to find a hotel, gave us a view of a very different India from the one we’d seen so far. Delhi is a very clean, modern city with very few, if any, of the rutted, dusty streets; mud housing and traditional transportation of the other cities we had seen. I did not even see one cow during the entire ride! Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Paharganj.

Paharganj, Delhi’s “backpacker ghetto;” in all my travels, is the one that most lives up to its reputation. From the wide, gleaming streets of Delhi’s center, one enters familiar narrow, crowded, dirty, polluted, cow infested streets lined with cheap guesthouses, internet cafes, and shops selling everything from traditional Indian garb and souvenirs to western snacks and travel guides. The air was thick with exhaust and the smell of spicy food mixed with fresh cow dung and I was anxious to get inside and out of the heat and the stench.

Just as we began walking, we were approached by a man hoping to lead us to the guesthouse of his choice. We had had one in mind, but Mark decided to see what this man had to offer; being too drained to protest, I followed without complaint. By this point in the trip, we both had well formed ideas of what we would pay and what conditions we would tolerate and the first few options all fell short of these ideals. After a number of rooms that were either too expensive or too dingy, we settled on one that was acceptable, with the agreement that we would look for another room for the rest of our stay in Delhi when we were rested and had stored the packs that made us easy prey for the guesthouse vultures.

The evening, we decided to check out Connaught Place, an area nearby with shops and restaurants. The first thing we came upon was a large movie theater. We had tried to see a movie in Calcutta, but could never time it right, and had not gotten around to seeing one. The movie that we had both expressed interest in earlier was playing, so we decided to see one that evening after getting something to eat.

I had not had much of an appetite since I had gotten sick and still was not feeling up to much, but when I saw the beautiful site of a Pizza Hut sign, there would have been no tearing me away. Although I could only eat a few pieces of garlic cheese bread and one slice of pizza, it was heavenly.

After dinner, we headed back to the movie theater, where we watched Mangal Panday, The Rising, in Hindi. I was really impressed and enjoyed it immensely. It was unlike other Indian movies I had seen in that there was more dialogue than singing and the romance scenes did not overwhelm the rest of the movie. It was an epic film, focusing on the relationship between an Indian man and an officer in the British military before the beginning of the first Indian War of Independence. Although it was in Hindi, there were a few scenes in English between the British officers and there was so much action that it was very easy to follow.

After the movie, we made our way back to our room with plans to rise early the next morning to move into our new hotel.