Impressions of Delhi

I’m feeling a bit glossed over by the combination of yoga and unbroken heat so bear with me as I explain my perceptions of Delhi, the largest city our group of thirteen has visited on our journey through Southern and Northern India. For each one of us there are over one million inhabitants of Delhi; an estimated from 18 to 22 million people reside in the city and the number of informal and migrant inhabitants makes exact counts impossible. Not only does Delhi have a high density population but it has an annual growth rate of 4.60%. By 2025 New Delhi is projected to have 29.49 million inhabitants. The city’s population size is astounding and really, just incomprehensible. Only by exploring the parts that make up the whole of Delhi by train, bicycle rickshaw, tour bus, van, and auto have I been able to piece together the blurred images that make up a metropolis of such proportion.

Delhi is ranked fourth in terms of population size out of the twenty six megacities of the world. A “megacity”, defined as having a population of over ten million people, sounds like something a ten year old boy might build out of Lego blocks over a whole rainy day’s time. He adds and expands without stepping back to examine the sprawling web of buildings and roads he’s laid across the family room floor, his mind transforming the black and white patterned carpeting into a global hub of commercial activity with no regard for the consequences of unchecked growth. I was able to look down upon the expanse of orange lights that mark the city from my airplane window as we descended at night from the south. They seemed to stretch on forever in all directions with no real organization or structure, just a twinkling mass. It was only once I was within the megacity that I found Delhi is indeed a singular, living, pulsing thing, and it’s also a decaying, sweltering beastly thing.

My perception of Delhi formed through comparison to what I’ve known before this trip- North America, Europe, East Africa and a hint of the Middle East. India is a second world country, but having only visited first and third world nations, I wondered upon arrival what that meant; what physical, social and economic components coexist to make India “developing” as opposed to “underdeveloped” or “developed”.

Sitting in the back of a red bicycle rickshaw propelled by a spindly-legged young man in Old Delhi, darting amongst taxis, buses and the occasional cow, passing under a grey twisted jungle of electrical wires strung over the chipping corners of grey buildings, I puzzle why this quarter of the city has been left out of development efforts. Refurbishment and preservation of urban dwellings that have stood through centuries of change is not part of the Indian government’s national development plan. Historical preservation is a privilege of the global wealthy nations. Delhi is not a first world city.

From the air conditioned compartment of our tour bus, our group cranes our necks to get a look at the bronze men dressed for battle reflecting the hot strong afternoon sun in a road rotary memorial. Bronze is not for the poor nations of the world. Speed walking to the Khan market I have to step off the sidewalk and into the street as two glossy-coated Cocker Spaniels strain to sniff at my bare legs, their owner oblivious to her dogs’ doings as she talks into her cell phone. Pet dogs are a sign of prosperity, of having more than enough to feed one’s family, of high class. Delhi is not a third world city.

Delhi is a second world city. It has paved roads and freshly painted crosswalks, but the mangy stray dogs and barefoot beggars who cross over them have no care for the electronic timers. They enter the road with hungry eyes on you, not on the countdown. Delhi is home to a perpetual game of cricket, a once pretentious sport brought by the British that is always being played on some patch of grass or in some hidden alleyway. Anywhere wide enough to swing a bat is utilized by dusty-haired youth while green private parks stand empty, their walls bar the common man from a rare commodity in this megacity: space. Delhi is a metropolis of contrasts where hardened poor rub shoulders with shiny rich, rickety establishments lean into newly laid concrete blocks, Rolls Royce’s are nearly nicked by dented rickshaws and the smooth white domes of Hindu temples mark oasis’s of calm amongst the horn-honking, neon sari blur. Delhi is always transforming, never immobile, for it is a city of the second world, neither underdeveloped nor developed, but as I now understand it, developing.