Quite a week

Even by Delhi’s standards this has been quite a week. A bomb blast on Wednesday and an earthquake the evening of that same day, then today I left my apartment to discover that my colony looked like a scene out of Waterworld. It seems the monsoon rains had been holding back in order to dump several days’ worth of rain in the space of two hours.

I’m sure people will have read about the bomb blast so I won’t go into details here but thankfully none of my friends or colleagues in Delhi were caught up in it at the time. The earthquake was a strange experience. It was my first earthquake, at least the first I was awake for as I managed to sleep through the last one when it happened a few months back(!), and quite a strong one. It was 11.30pm and I was sat out on my rooftop reading when suddenly the whole building started to shake and continued to do so for about 6 seconds. I was confused for the first 2 seconds, then so shocked when I realised what it was and heard other people running out from their houses onto the street that I just remained rooted to the spot. By the time I thought perhaps I ought to try and leave the building the rumbling had stopped. I’m probably not the ‘quick thinker’ you want to be stood near in a natural disaster situation.

This morning’s monsoon rains provided more light hearted entertainment than serious cause for concern. I started off my walk to work with water swilling around my legs at ankle height then by the time I reached half way it had reached calf height and I stopped to take cover by a shop and roll my leggings up a little further. I had a chat in broken Hindi with the man in the shop who I think thought I was slightly crazy to even be attempting to walk any further. As I walked on I lurched between patches of high ground and occasionally one of my legs would disappear down into a pot hole. I was too focused on ploughing forwards to pay much attention but I must have been a pretty ridiculous sight. By the time I reached the Sikh temple, about five minutes from my office, the cycle rickshaws and cars were almost floating through the water. At this point I’d abandoned all hope of any part of me staying dry and was more concerned about the unidentifiable slimy objects I could feel sliding past my legs. I passed one poor lady whose cycle rickshaw driver had abandoned her in the middle of a river of rushing water, deciding that he’d rather risk her wrath (she was screaming across at him whilst he stood under a shelter and looked sheepish) than push his rickshaw through the water. Another eventful morning.

The high of this week has been the number of offers I’ve received from Indian acquaintances to come and eat with their families, join in their religious festivals, accompany them in visits to their home States or join their Buddhist chanting group. It’s unusual for a week to go by without getting these kind of offers but I suppose this week it particularly highlighted to me one of the things I love about Delhi and India in general, that is the way people are so quick to accept you as part of their extended family. Sometimes it’s out of concern (none of my Indian friends really understand how I manage to survive living on my own. I think they think I spend 16 hours rocking quietly in a corner until it’s time to go back to work) but mostly it’s because they genuinely see you as just another part of their own extended family network. The offer to join the Buddhist chanting group (at least that’s what I call them, the name given was much more interesting but I can’t remember it) came from my landlord.  I went to pay my rent and electricity to him the other evening and he passed me a pamphlet about their group which generally promotes world peace and is affiliated with the general Buddhist label? (spot the atheist!) I had to laugh as when I went up to my flat and opened the pamphlet the first page was about working towards, ‘A world free of nuclear weapons.’ Not in itself at all funny, and a principle I wholeheartedly agree with, but what made me laugh was how I’ve gone from having a landlady who I’m quite sure, were she given the chance, would rent out her basement for the purpose of nuclear armament and probably offer to light the fuse, to a landlord that is campaigning for nuclear disarmament and world peace. Perhaps my ending up here is what’s meant by karma.