A Rickshaw Ride Through Old Delhi

Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque embedded within the streets of Old Delhi.
india 137, originally uploaded by Benjamin Long.

My grandpa developed a fascination with peacocks and instead of just dreaming about the exotic birds, he decided to populate the farm with blue-shoulder roosters and hens. Nature took its course and soon there were dozens of peacocks roaming and nesting in the barns, sorting pens and even the front porch. For me, the crowing peacocks did not tell of another world or an enchanted forest in the jungles of India as a Rudyard Kipling book may suggest. The often annoying shrills bellowed out by the beautiful birds meant I was home on the farm getting ready to go fishing, hunting or running through the barn from hay bail to hay bail trying not to fall into a crevice. In India, peacocks are anywhere with just enough green space to let the birds spread their wings. Their early morning singing, annoying I might add, wakes me up every morning from the adjacent nursery to my current home. It brings a smile to my face, if only for a brief moment because it is 6AM. I role back over and think of the farm. That is one of the few things that remind me of home in India. To tell you just how different life can be here I will try to recreate a thirty minute auto-rickshaw ride through Old Delhi I took the other day. It was an adventure in itself.

But first, you need a brief history lesson of Delhi to fully appreciate Old Delhi. Delhi has evolved over the ruins of seven cities, built by rulers from the Hindu Rajputs to the Mughals and finally the British. Old Delhi is the city of the Moghuls, created by Shah Jahan and dating back to the seventeenth century. It’s the capitol’s most frenetic quarter, and it’s most Islamic, a reminder that for more than seven hundred years Delhi was a Muslim city. Its greatest monuments are the magnificent remnants of Moghul empires, the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque. Due to the tremendous economic boom of late, modern suburbs and developments encompass the tombs, temples and ruins that date back centuries; in some cases, the remains of whole cities from the distant past sit happily amid homes and highways built in the last decade or two. With its jam-packed streets, bazaars, tower blocks and temples, forts, mosques and colonial mansions there is a surprise around every corner. It is a place where suit and tie businessmen rub shoulders with traditionally dressed orthodox Hindus and Muslims, and the smell of spices, feces, burning trash, and cow dung fills the air with a rather strange aroma. This is Old Delhi.

“Mujhe Red Fort Chahiye” I try tell to the auto-rickshaw driver in my worst Hindi accent. He looks at me and just smiles. I fear I may have botched the only Hindi words I have been able to learn in a week so I ask him again in English; I want Red Fort! “ Oh, yes…100 rupee,” he tells me holding back a sly grin. No, No, I will give you 20 rupee. 90, 30, 70, 30, 50, 30, 40, ok 40 it’s a deal then. Lets go!

And we’re off in the green and yellow auto-rickshaw that smells of exhaust fumes from the harsh life on the Delhi streets. The streets are soon filled with every beast of burden pulling some sort of cargo; donkeys carrying sandbags for construction projects, mules carrying wagons full of cow dung, camels carrying larger trolleys filled with sacks of potatoes, horses pulling carriages, cows pulling or carrying an assortment of goods, and people pushing carts filled with vegetables. The four marked driving lanes don’t really mean anything since the buses, cars, rickshaws, animals, people, trolleys, mopeds and motorcycles are crammed six or seven across.

Ahh, finally a stop light; everyone will stop after the oncoming traffic honk their horns to signal it is their turn. Silence, if only for a moment because there is a beggar between three and five years old holding a naked infant while rubbing her belly signifying she is hungry and needs food. Children beggars are everywhere. I give in and give her a rupee. My driver then yells at me for perpetuating the problem. The next thing I know she has told her friends and I then have six children beggars swarming my rickshaw. The light turns green. Finally, I can get out of here. The children then must dodge the oncoming traffic that doesn’t slow down because pedestrians are on the bottom of the pecking order on the streets.

The streets get narrower and more congested as we near the heart of Old Delhi. My driver directs my attention to the right where a huge baboon is swinging from electrical lines above the street shops. This was not like the baboons I saw in Africa. This was the city kind that was black from sleeping in back alleys and scavenging through trash. Dreadful looking… but normal here. Make sure you close your hotel windows because they can be good thieves!

Damn! We hit a traffic jam. Everyone laid on their horns even more than they usually do which is a lot. I can’t see what the problem is ahead but the traffic begins to slowly creep along. My driver makes a quick maneuver around the bus in front of us blocking our view. Now way! Three mounted elephants are making their way through the middle of the street causing the traffic jam. We speed by the elephants along with a Land Cruiser, Mercedes and multiple other rickshaws. I was stunned and my driver looked at me and laughed.

Watch out! A cow was in the middle of the road and my driver was laughing, looking at me instead of looking at the road. Cows are the king of the road wandering with, against or across traffic as they please where they always have the right-away. My driver swerves out of the way just in time. The cow remains oblivious to the traffic and elephants going past as it continues to chew its curd in the middle of the road.

I can see the Red Fort, almost there. The traffic becomes even more congested; cow, Lexus, horse and buggy, camel pulling a trolley, Land Rover, three bicycle- rickshaws, five auto-rickshaws, Mercedes E-class, more cows, beggars, touts, donkeys loaded down with sacks, two buffalo… “Red Fort!” my driver yells. I give a hundred rupee note. “No change, no change…I wait you here after tour.” I took my tour and my driver was awaiting my return just as he said. Then, I got to take the second strangest ride of my life back home; second due to the fact I was becoming slightly more accustomed to my surroundings.