Vanity or insanity

One of Delhi's endearing features is the ambition shown by motorcyclists. What fits in a car must be able to fit on a bike. Hence whole families ride around town on the back of a scooter - though shockingly the (generally male) driver wears the only helmet leaving wife and infant children to ride the bumps for dear life. And it is not unusual to see large packages riding on the laps of drivers as they weave in and out of traffic. But this takes the cake - surely wishing decapitation on himself or passing pedestrians. Wacko!

Mirror sculpture - Sanskriti

Antique textiles - Sanskriti

Pot - Sanskriti

Terracotta at sanskriti

the battle

I like this - from 'inhaling the Mahatma': "what makes India such a wonder, such a contested place... (is that)... Indians have not retreated into themselves yet. They're fully engaged in the battle of life. We like this environment of tamasha (fuss). Everyone must have their rights. Everyone is fighting to be heard."

That certainly accords with the din and dash of daily life in Delhi. There is an urgency in the air as spaces on roads and footpaths are contested. A thin line divides those who are comfortable and those who are not. Nerves show in job interviews and door to door CV spruiking, in the taps on car windows and the hawkers cries. The battle for betterment is everywhere.

People are complaining about the impact of Mumbai on tourism, and business. The taxi drivers recite their woes like a mantra: "last January much busier, those terrorists ruin it for everybody" said one last week. The line just got thinner.

a wall of mo's

perhaps I'd fit in better with one of these.

Mild powerpole chaos

Sunset stairs

The mousecatcher of Vasant Vihar

I have a resident mouse that scurries the corridor in the night. Today I found this in the kitchen.... a mousecatcher, not a trap, a catcher. Little mouse can find a new home in someone else's house rather than being crushed in the pursuit of cheese. So civilised!

The lolly man

Ok so I was eyeing off this guy's wheels....

a picture of plenty at a market near my joint

The deep end at Vasant Intercontinental

At the traffic lights yesterday a small boy in rags pushed up against my window, his hair wildly knotted. In his dusty hands he held up two books for sale - the Booker Prize winning 'White Tiger' and 'The Argumentative Indian' by Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen. Only in India.

Slumdog Crorepati

Slumdog millionaire has stoked the passions of the myriad columnists in this city. But they're torn. On one hand a film inspired and filmed in India has shone bright on the global stage and the patriotic juices are flowing. But on the other the film's content (slums, poverty, filth, violence) challenges the pride of the new shiny India. Some complain that Slumdog is only successful because western audiences are suckers for the 'joy amidst misery' genre, and that the film plays to the prevailing stereotypes of India. There is clear frustration that despite reflective glass malls and sleek limousines dotting its cities, the west still only wants to know about the old India. Exposes of dark underbellies are not particularly welcome ('White Tiger' has landed a similar response). Anyway, Indians will be able to decide for themselves on 23 January when 'Slumdog Crorepati' is released locally dubbed in Hindi. I might go along just to see the crowd reaction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aikc11rp_9Q

Wall detail - Shantipath

I love that adornment is everywhere here - almost as if design and colour are staples, like food and oxygen.

In Nehru Park

Angles of Oz in Delhi

If Delhi had a creation story it would involve a tiger snake.

Paris minus the breadsticks

How to honk

Textbook Delhi driving technique, hand firmly on the wheel with the thumb hovering over the horn.

Cab interior 2

A not unfamilar sight

Delhi 2010 is on the horizon and it seems the city is readjusting its intestines in anticipation - road works are EVERYWHERE. As viewed through the curvykitsch of an Ambassador's window.

Delhi blue

I have created a colour. Or rather I've named one. It's here: http://www.colourlovers.com/color/06068A/Delhi_blue

I called it 'Delhi Blue'. It's not perfect, but it gestures to the radiance of some Islamic tiles we saw at a Delhi archeological park earlier in the week. Five hundred years of unrelenting Delhi sun has not dulled them. Amazing. Next time I'll take my camera!

cab interior 1

This is the first in a series on the various wonderful interiors of Delhi's cabs (thanks SS for the inspiration).

The origin of the face towel

I guess most social conventions are invisible to longtime residents. As a newby, I'm puzzled by this - a dainty little towel that cloaks the meter in all the taxis I've travelled in so far. Is this a gesture of discretion, so as not to tarnish the interaction between driver and passenger with the grubbiness of commerce? Without the meter, the journey might be characterised as a mate giving a mate a lift. It's a nice thought. Less generously, in masking the meter the driver might hope the passenger either doesn't notice there is a meter in the cab, or is content to let the driver charge whatever his imagination suggests a journey is worth? Whenever I've asked to see the meter, the neatly arranged towel has been lifted only grudgingly, only partially and only very briefly as if something deeply illicit hid underneath. The truth is a dirty secret! Anyway the towel is clearly a deeply embedded social convention, at least in this city. Somewhere, sometime, the first driver threw his face towel over his meter and a craze was begun.

down the local shops

land of a thousand newspapers

I love that India is bucking the trend away from printed newspapers. New Delhi alone has more than 15 english language daily newspapers and many more in the vernacular. One estimate I've heard is that India has more than 2000 daily newspapers, with many more periodicals. I get a mere four delivered to home each morning - the Hindu (above), the Economic Times, a subsidiary of the Wall Street Journal called 'Mint' and the Times of India. I've already been chastised for my choices, which I think I'll shake up from time to time. Some are more opinion-driven than others, and some lean towards hyperbole and sensation, but on the whole the quality of writing is high. Surprisingly, they're all content rich - there are a lot of 'happenings' in a country of a billion people (and a city of 15 million).

evidence of the mist

man in pink rides his bike past my house

As the morning mist clears on wintry Delhi, the first noise of the day is that of bicycles such as this rattling quietly through the streets past sleeping guards (and jetlagged new arrivals).

I visited the Delhi 'Habitat Centre' today. It's a cross between a university campus and an office building; most of the residents are worthy NGOs, galleries and think-tanks. I liked the roof - nice offset to the neo-brutalist (or is it just brutalist) architecture.

Lodi Gardens

My next door neighbour

Delhi - Habitat Centre roof

So Mr Singh tells me the battered old ambassador I ride in each morning is in fact a 2001 model. These roads are not for the faint hearted.

I'm not sure I'll tire of riding in the back of Ambassador taxis. They're India's equivalent of the London cab, they're bloody comfortable and they've survivors. Each bears the scars of battle having honked and shunted through Delhi traffic for decades as the chaos has risen around them. Drivers nurse the wearied chassis' down the road and turn off the headlights to save gas. The meter in every ambassador is tastefully cloaked in a small towel - I can only assume this is to build suspense for my benefit. As the newby in town my haggling skills are clearly not up to scratch and Mr Singh can smell a sucker. He happily waits in his Amritsar-themed Ambassador outside my house each morning and leaps out of his seat to open the squeaky-hinged door for me when I emerge. But at Rs150 it's a great deal in these early heady days. The sights and smells of Delhi are rendered richer from the backseat of an Ambassador.

BREAKING NEWS: New man in town says "not all news can be breaking news."

Cable TV (fox news style) has arrived in India. The news cycle is voracious -no time for stagnant news, everything is BREAKING OUT and slam dancing on your television right now. Shock, scandal and catastrophe scroll across the screen and flash "be deeply alarmed" in bold red letters. Newsreaders are gripped by the gravity and consequence of their stories. Stern tones rule. It's truly dazzling and fantastical.

What's he building in there

Next door to my house is a construction site - work continues from dawn till midnight. Behind the blue plastic tarpaulins and bamboo scaffolding they are building something - all the bangs, sparks and yelling of industry are there. It sounds like a foundry, or a nineteenth century coal mine. In three months my taxi driver tells me, the shroud will be removed to reveal a house just like mine - and all the other houses in my street. Until then men will haul bricks from trucks in the pre-dawn haze, and other men will wrestle within the concrete skeleton all day and night. Other sites nearby are merely pits, with armies of men scraping out the clay for a basement or a car park. Delhi is being rebuilt, one oversized mansion at a time.

NNG paddock

copper birch after rain

detail of beaded bowl

copper birch at Nar Nar Goon