Another day in India. Again it was our first day in a new place this time Delhi. Our group had a free afternoon, so two students and I went out into the city. Our first stop was the post office. I am an avid postcard writer and had a few to mail. Finding the post office was an adventure in itself. We asked where it was before we left. We were told it was easy to get there from the hotel: just a left out of the hotel down the street and then around a traffic circle. We started walking and asked two men just to make sure we are going in the right direction and they pointed straight ahead building our confidence. Then a man in an auto pulled up, asking us where we wanted to go. Auto is the local word for a small open air taxi that seats about four people beside the driver. He was trying to get us into his auto. One student told him we were going to the post office. “The post office? You’re going the wrong way!” He then pointed in the opposite direction from where we were going and said, “The post office is that way!” Skeptically I tried to get our group to leave. The young man picked up on my attitude and changed his tune a bit, saying that there were in fact two post offices, but that I could only send mail out at one. Not taking the man’s advice we walked away towards the post office we originally set of to. The post office was on the other side of a traffic circle form where we were standing and on our trip around it the little yellow auto of our new friend came puttering up in back of us. The man called out, “The post office is that way” and pointed to the one we had been trying to go to the whole time. He drove off past us leaving just the fumes from his diesel engine.
We reached the back end of the post office, which was not even a post office but another public building attached to it. We followed little wooden signs around the building to the real entrance; like a scavenger hunt. At the front of the building there was a big orange sign saying post office and a big entrance next to it that was completely closed off. We kept walking past it and there was a little wooden sign that said, “Post office this way,” with an arrow pointing into a gate where there was a stair way and a single door. The whole thing reminded me of a back ally way and I was not excited to go in, but the boys went first and I followed along behind; and there was indeed a post office. I went to the first counter I saw to get stamps. The woman did not really understand me. Finally I put my postcards on the counter and said, “I need to get these to America, how do I do that?” She got me some stamps, 15 rp each. They were the kind you had to lick, which I had not seen since I was a child so I got excited by them. I touched my tongue to the back recognizing the indescribably strange feel and taste of a stamp. That is something that does not change from country to country. After I was done I asked the woman what to do. She replied that I had to bring them to counter four. Which was the counter right next door to where I was. But no one was there. While standing at counter four I looked at the woman with a confused look. She walked all the way over, pulled out a stamp pad and stamped each of my post cards with a purple stamp. I asked her if it was all set and she said yes. She was completely stoic the entire time.
From the post office we followed the arrows on the big street signs to Connaught Place where there is a market. The signs were sparse and we passed many traffic circles. I was worried about going in the right direction. I saw two young women on the sidewalk and asked them if we were going in the right direction. They responded that we were and said they were going in the same direction and would walk with us. We asked them a lot of questions: they were both Delhi natives, going to college and 21 just like me. They stopped at a street with a market near Connaught Place. They told us it was a people’s market and that everything was very inexpensive there. Then they pointed further down the road and said the other market was there but explained it was more western. They waved good-bye to us and left us there.
We looked over and realized that we were in front of a music shop. In the front window were guitars and sitars; it was a nice East meets West feel. The whole store was starch white. There was a black piano in the middle of the room up on a red velvet pedestal. We gravitated to the sitar section where a beautiful sales girl told us about the instrument and offered to play for us. Naturally we accepted. She sat on a piano bench and two men came up with chairs for us. We watched her play. I was personally mesmerized by it. The instrument, the way it was played and the sounds it made were so foreign to me and so interesting. To me the sitars looked so out of place next to the Western instruments; so interesting so unique. Yet it was still commoditized just the same as the other instruments there.
After the music shop we entered the market. This was the market experience I had been looking for. It was nothing like the market in Kerala; it was crowded, it was noisy, and it even smelled. I know that these are typically the attributes that would turn one off from a market but I wanted it all; I wanted the experience. I dove right in, stopping everywhere to the dismay of the two guys with me. There was a whole variety of clothing. Plain men’s whit short-sleeve dress shirts, which are common in India. Men’s drawstring shorts and pants made with plaid cloth. A booth selling loose fitting drawstring skirts and salwar kameez tops. Others were selling loose fitting dresses with bright patters and v-necks, something not very Indian. There were also booths devoted to sunglasses, jewelry, and brasswork. I stopped to look at everything and put the bright interesting clothing up to my body then turned and asked them what they thought. Surprisingly they answered!
I let the people at the shops tempt me in. They would always start at something crazy like 1,000 rp for every item and I would use my shocked face and the words, “No way! That’s too much,” would exit my lips. They would get quiet and say, “Okay, make a price make a price.” To which I would respond, “100 rp!” To which the reply was always shock and a, “No no no!” The game was always the same, I was always in control, I always got the price I wanted. Most items could be brought down to between 150 and 500 depending on the actually worth. I knew that I could get the prices lower but felt better giving them more money for their items. When you look at the conversion that is $3.50 to $11 which makes everything bought a good deal.
Not all the people had their own stalls, some walked around, following people. One man caught us as we entered; we called him the elephant man. He targeted one of the guys, I still have no clue why. Maybe he looked more like a tourist than the rest of us. But this man was right; the one he targeted is a sucker for statues, which is what the man was selling. He had wooden statues with black varnish on them. Two were Indian; one was the god Ganesh, the son of Shiva. Ganesh was the son of Shiva, birthed in secret by his partner Parvati. When Shiva discovered him he cut off his head. Ganesh was given the head of an elephant in replacement. Another statue was of the Buddha, Siddhartha Govinda. The other two were Chinese. One was of a Chinese fishing boat and the second a Chinese version of Buddha, where he is depicted as a very fat jolly man. I asked the man why he had Chinese figurines as well and was given no answer. I assumed they had actually been made in China.
The man followed us as we made our way through till finally our friend got one; a Ganesh. The man did not stop there, he decided I was going to get one next. Eventually this man attracted more men trying to sell us things. One man with wallets another with pipes and a third with postcards. Now this is the trick of markets, just say no and walk away. By the time we had walked the length of the market and back all of the 900 rp prices had fallen to 100 rp and we were fine with buying them. But the elephant man was persistent. Most of the men following us fell away as we reached the ends of the market; but not him. This man followed us around the corner till one of the guys turned around and told him to stop bugging us.
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