Strike Action

It was 24 October 1990. Something was going on in India that I might have heard about when I was listening to the BBC World Service on my radio but to tell the truth I hadn't been paying very much attention when I was in Turkey. What was going on was, however, very serious. When I woke up this Wednesday morning I realised my breakfast experience the day before was, when considering the bigger picture, nothing very much to worry about. There wasn't any breakfast to be had at all this morning.

What was it that was going on? Well, I may not be in any position to say what is or is not typically Indian but I suppose something like this is unlikely to happen anywhere else. Some weeks before my arrival the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed in 1980, Sri Lal Krishna Advani had begun a Rath Yatra. I am indebted to Wikipedia for the explanation of this term. It is made up of two words "Rath" and "Yatra". Rath means chariot and Yatra means pilgrimage, journey or procession. So already it is a typically Indian thing. The Rath Yatra is a festival held every year in Puri in the state of Orissa in June or July to commemorate the return of Jagganath (Krishna) to his home in Vrindavan after a long period of separation from the people there. The festival involves pulling huge Chariots through the streets from one temple to another. I don't want to get sidetracked too much here so if you want to know more about this I suggest you go looking for it.

Wikipedia says the english word "Juggernaut" derives from the Jagganath Rath Yatra. This journey undertaken by L K Advani and his supporters had all the power of a juggernaut and left a bloody trail of destruction.

The reason this journey was started was something else that I would say was typically Indian and which would be unlikely to happen anywhere else. It all concerned a plan to build a temple at the birthplace of Rama, the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. The trouble was that there appeared to be no way a temple could simply be built near where Rama was born, say in the same city. Oh no, the temple had to be built on the exact spot where he was born. The problem with that was that there was a mosque on the spot, the Babri Masjid. This had been built centuries before and it seems had been deliberately built on the spot precisely because it was where Rama was supposed to have been born and the mosque never had any special significance from a religious point of view. It was purely and simply a symbol not of devotion and of religion but of conquest. Correspondingly, quite apart from its being an obstacle, preventing Hindus from worshipping the birthplace of their idol, Sri Rama, it was for the country the symbol of its subjugation. This is how in 1989 the Bharatiya Janata Party formally decided to lend its shoulder to the cause.

I stand to be corrected but I doubt whether it is a matter of indisputable fact that Sri Rama was actually born on the exact spot where it is said he was born. This seems to be a case of it being a matter of religious belief rather than actual fact. If I am right it was a tenet of the faith that this was the spot where Sri Rama was born and that was the end of it. There was no room for argument and less room for compromise.

All the wise teachings of a religion seem to go out of the window in a situation like this and it would seem that the Rath Yatra resulted in communal violence wherever it went. The aim was to have the Babri Masjid demolished which clearly was not something the muslim community could accept.

Let's not forget that India is a very large place and at the time I was there its population was approaching the 1 billion mark, ten percent of whom were muslims. Ten percent may seem like a minority but it is a large minority comprising 100 million people.

Mr Advani's Rath Yatra was gathering pace and on 24 October 1990 there was a general strike. All the shops were shut in Paharganj and no-one in the restaurant was working. There was no breakfast to be had. I don't know who called the strike but it was pretty well adhered to.

There was was nothing for it but to get on with what I had to do. The next thing on my list of things to get out of the way was to apply for my Nepalese visa. I hadn't got one before I set off and so it seemed sensible to sort it out in Delhi before I was sidetracked and found myself unable to sort it out in time.

At the Embassy there were loads of back-packer types queuing up and filling in the forms to apply for visas to enter Nepal. Here I learned something interesting. Whilst my father had always said that having British Citizenship was like winning First Prize in the lottery of life it turned out that I might have been better off with an Irish Passport. I honestly can't remember how much the visa for Nepal cost. I'm sure it wasn't very much but enough to make sure I got it before I ran out of money to pay for it. On the other hand a visa for Nepal for Irish Citizens was absolutely free. Indeed it seemed that possession of an Irish passport very often meant that there was no visa fee. The reason for this was that all around the world at that time the Irish were perceived to be oppressed by the British! Anyone who had also suffered under the yoke of British colonial oppression was welcomed with open arms and without fee. On the other hand holders of a British passport could expect to pay a hefty visa fee as a revenge for the former Empire's sins. It was also likely that the cost of a visa for British citizens reflected the very costly visas that some visitors need to enter the UK. So having a British passport meant I had won Last Prize in the lottery of visa fees.

Getting a Nepalese visa was a two stage process and I had to leave my passport at the Embassy to collect it the following day after my application had been processed. I headed back to the Metropolis Tourist Home.

As I walked down the Main Bazaar Road I purchased a length of chain to attach to my rucksack. The intention was to be able to lock it to whatever means of transport I was using so that I didn't have to worry about it disappearing while I was asleep. I know it sounds paranoid but the stories you hear about people losing their stuff get to you. It's all very well thinking it would never happen to you but I thought it would be best to take precautions. At the same time I sorted out a parcel of paraphernalia that I didn't need to be carrying around so as to post it home.

I don't know when the strike ended because by the end of the day the shops were open again and I took a stroll up and down the Main Bazaar Road and had a Biriyani at the Metropolis. It wasn't very good and my notes say I went out to eat again - the meal cost a princely Rs8!

How To Boil An Egg

I woke up early. I suppose I must have slept quite a bit since leaving Turkey. I dare say I spent a good proportion of the flight asleep and I'd had a snooze soon after arrival and then had been to bed early. So it was no surprise that I woke up early. It wasn't very early. It was 8.00am. I washed and shaved and went downstairs to the restaurant for breakfast. This was a Hotel after all and so I expected to find the restaurant busy with other people eating breakfast.

Not a bit of it. When I got down there all I found was all the staff fast asleep lying all over the place in impossibly uncomfortable sleeping positions stretched over the chairs and benches. Someone must have been awake because I did order something to eat. I thought I would have a couple of boiled eggs with some toast and tea. Simple enough, I thought. Wrong again! My boiled eggs took 45 minutes to arrive and the reason, I discovered, was that upon receipt of my order the Chef immediately put on a pan on the boil with about 5 dozen eggs in it. By the time my eggs arrived the Hotel had come to life.

I had business to do. the small amount of cash I had got at the airport wasn't going to last long and in order to get more I needed to go to the Canara Bank where i was to pick up the first lot of the money I had instructed Barclays to send for me to collect.

Barclays had told me that I could collect it from the Chandni Chowk branch so after my (disappointingly hard boiled) eggs I headed off there. The Chandni Chowk branch of the Canara Bank was guarded by an elderly Sikh man armed with a shotgun but I was able to persuade him that I had business at the bank and he let me in. The place was not what I had expected. It wasn't exactly a bank branch as such and all I remember now is that that the interior was dark and the people working there were doing everything manually. I saw no computers or such like just people working with large ledger books. I explained my business and was told I was actually at the wrong place. I was given the address of another office at the All India Women's Conference Hall. So this was a false start.

I went back to Paharganj and walked up to New Delhi Railway Station where I made a reservation for the train to Jammu. I had a vegetable biryani at the Metropolis for lunch and then headed to the other branch of the Canara bank to collect my money.

The LP Guide was right on the money about what to expect. It advised that whilst it was possible to have money "wired" to Indian banks you had to be careful and quite persistent to get it. All of this, remember, was nearly 18 years ago and before the emergence of India as the economic power it is now. Indeed at the time of my trip the Indian Rupee was not traded in the money markets. The advice in the LP Guide was that if you had money sent to a bank in India and went to collect it you would almost certainly be told that it had not arrived. The book said that in fact the money almost certainly would have arrived but the person dealing with you would simply tell you that it had not and send you away. After you left the bank your money would be transferred into the employee's own account and over a few days you would be fobbed off while it earned him a few rupees in interest. Even a few rupees of interest was worth having. The bank staff could count on the fact that it would take days for you to establish contact with your own bank and have it confirmed that the money had indeed been sent and had arrived. When presented with the evidence that the money had been sent it would mysteriously appear.

This branch of the Canara Bank was much more modern than the one in Chandni Chowk. I announced my reason for visiting and was ushered to a desk to wait for someone to help me. When the cheerful chap arrived I told him that I had come to collect money sent by Barclays. Without batting an eyelid but with an apologetic slight wobble of the head the man told me the money had not arrived. I couldn't believe the guide book had been so accurate. I kept my cool and politely explained that I would have been more inclined to believe that the money had not arrived if the man had taken the trouble to establish my name. How could he know that my money had not arrived if he didn't even know who I was? I gave him my details and asked him to make sure. The money had arrived and after a bit of form filling I left the bank with some of it in cash and the rest in travellers cheques.

I headed back to the Metropolis and spent the evening in and around the "hotel". I should say that in my research I have noticed that the Metropolis Tourist Home & Restaurant appears to have changed beyond all recognition. The LP's website review is of a hotel that I do not I remember staying in. There are even pictures of rooms that, quite frankly, I would not have imagined possible in 1990. The place is now classed as mid-range but when I was there it was definitely a budget backpackers place. I feel I must establish my credentials by confirming that I was not staying in a comfortable or plush hotel. No way! There was no rooftop bar and only one restaurant which was more of a general sitting area with tables and benches along the walls.

I remember that as I flew into Delhi I got talking to a couple who said they were going to stay in a more classy hotel about 10 or possibly more times more expensive than the Metropolis. I think the guy must have been called Dikkan. I met him again a couple of days later and he told me that he and his girlfriend had been woken in the night by rats running along their balcony! I didn't see anything like that in my cheap and cheerful hotel proving to me, at least, that paying more doesn't necessarily guarantee that the hotel will be better.



I spent the afternoon leaning out of the window of the room pointing my K1000 down the street trying to take a few representative snaps. These pictures show "the view" such as it was. They aren't particularly good pictures I'll admit but I had only been in the place one whole day and I felt a bit conspicuous out in the street with a camera and was uncomfortable pointing it at people. The long lens was handy, if a little difficult to stop from shaking (hence the fact that at least one is out of focus).




I remember the auto-rickshaws that were parked just outside the hotel. The fact is that Connaught Circus was quite within walking distance but whenever you approached these guys for a ride they would announce that the price was something quite ridiculous like 100 rupees. I would argue that this was far too much and offer say 20 rupees and they would say "OK, get in, 80 rupees". After some more bargaining you might get a better price and set off but by the time you'd finished all the haggling you might have been well on your way on foot. In fact the hassle used to be so intense that I think that I gave up even bothering to attempt to get a ride in them.



It is probably a sign of how much time I spent at the window that the apple seller above seems to have managed to sell off a fair amount of his initial stock while I was peering up and down the street. Then again, he probably isn't the same guy. I think there were two of them. The first one pictured above's stall can be seen on the extreme right of the picture below.



As evidenced by these photos there were a lot of cows hanging about in Paharganj. they began to blend in after a while. They are sacred or holy animals in India and after a while you hardly notice them.



My notes tell me that the Thali I had for my dinner cost 10 rupees (about 20p). I have to say that it was hard to know where might be good to eat and if I recall it properly the place I went was up some stairs. I remember thinking the food must be good because as I was going up some well fed cockroaches were coming down.

1 2 3 India is Free

So that was Turkey. Before I left on the 22.05 Turkish Airlines flight to Delhi I sold my Lonely Planet book. I wish I hadn't done that. I did it because I think I had read somewhere that rather than carry a redundant guidebook or even pay to post it home it would be a better idea to turn it into cash for the next leg of the journey. Selling meant I couldn't refer to it when I was writing up the earlier posts. The LP guide also suggested that it would be a good idea to buy Scotch and 555 State Express cigarettes to trade for cash. I used the proceeds of the sale of my Turkey guide book to buy the duty free.

Don't get me wrong, Turkish Airlines were OK and I can't remember any particular reason for not recommending them. their planes were quite comfortable enough and all that but just like when I set off from Heathrow the pilot had to have two goes at setting off. The first take-off was aborted after tearing off down the runway without actually leaving the ground. The thrill of the acceleration was replaced for a short time by the fear that the plane would run out of runway. The plane returned to the start position and we set off late but successfully after a second run up.

Nothing can prepare a person for the experience of India. I had conned myself into believing that a month and a half in Turkey would harden me up. I don't mind saying that arriving in Delhi I was a little bit frightened. I had read my Lonely Planet guide book quite thoroughly in the months leading up to departure but although it was some kind of preparation it wasn't nearly enough.

The Airport in Delhi was like most others, I suppose. The procedures are all the same in terms of passport control, baggage reclaim and customs. Once I was through customs the familiarity evaporated. Nothing was as I had expected. I don't know what I had expected but the impression I got was that things weren't organised. All I can remember now is that it was very difficult to understand what was going on. I exchanged some money for Rupees in the airport and set off to the City.

The LP guide had recommended getting an ex servicemen's bus service to Paharganj which was where the budget places to stay were and I somehow located a bus which seemed to be going in the right direction. No-one asked me for a ticket and my trip to India started with a free ride downtown. That was probably the only thing I had for free in India.

The LP Guide recommended the Metropolis Tourist Home as a good budget end place to stay and I somehow found it. I think I got off the bus at some stage and was pointed down a narrow street which led straight to the place. It is at the other end of the Main Bazaar which leads to new Delhi Railway Station and that was why I had chosen to base myself there.



I don't seem to have taken a picture of my own of the Metropolis Tourist Home which is a shame but I did find one while trawling Google images. The picture above was taken by Godoirum Bassanensis and he has a lot of other good pictures on his Flikr site. His picture was taken 17 years after my visit and the Metropolis is on the left in the foreground. Judging from the photo the Metropolis has been spivved up quite a lot and the whole of Paharganj seems a good deal more orderly these days than it was (except for the overhead electricity cabling). There seem to be more cars. I don't think I saw any to speak of when I was there save for the occasional Premier or tiny Isuzu.

I didn't want to stay in a room by myself. The whole experience was already freaking me out so I booked into a dormitory room which had about 4 beds in it each with a locker at the head of the bed. The rate was 50rs per night (about £1) and there was a bathroom with the crappiest hot water supply I had ever seen. It had been a long flight and I decided to have a sleep before venturing out.

I seem to recall tentatively stepping out and turning left and walking. The whole place is an assault on the senses. I think I had been asleep for a couple of hours and had been downstairs to the restaurant area and had peeked out into the street a couple of times before I dared go out. The noises, the colours, the smells, the shouting, the music, the bicycles, the rickshaws, the auto-rickshaws, the cows and above all the sheer numbers of people were overwhelming. I remember I walked up the Main Bazaar Road perhaps as far as New Delhi Railway Station at which point the sun had gone down and I decided I couldn't take much more. It was too intense. A shifty character sidled up to me and offered me Hashish, I swear he showed me a lump of something. I politely declined whereupon, undaunted, he ventured "Brown sugar?". I think this was the thing that decided me that I had been out too long I said "no thank you" and I headed straight back. I think I had been out there in the thick of it for about 30 minutes. It was enough for my first day.

I hung out in the restaurant area downstairs in the Metropolis and ate something that my notes says was stuffed tomatoes with curry sauce and buttered fried rice. I went to bed early.