India, Day 20
My flight is at 730am, to Delhi. I don’t have a ticket yet, my booking number gone with the lost phone. But I have a name. Nobody is working at the office yet, so the airport security officer gets to work, but fails to find my record. The flight is fully booked. I get a very tight chest pain. After 20 min, he discovers he wasn’t online. I forgive him, he’s the sweetest security guard behind a PC.
I fly business class. Next to me is Maya, a Swiss doctor. She and her husband spent 3 weeks in a Ladakhi monastery which ran out of money to complete a children’s hospital. They came here to inspect how genuine their needs were. She’s on her way back to raise funds for the hospital in Switzerland. She tells me how bored she is with her job, how doctors fight over a patient back home. I think of the vast divides we live in.
We share a taxi to town, I decide to live in comfort at Connaught Place, they are in a saving mode so we split up. I forget my sweater in the taxi. They come back with it in the afternoon and convince me to join them in exploring Delhi. We have a lot of fun, laugh all the time. We do one touristy place after another, our driver speaks no English, and I’m getting bored. I invite them to the most expensive lunch place we can find, grateful for my sweater. We part, hug and kiss, saying we may meet someday again.
I do what I like best – wander the streets of Delhi. I walk into the heart of Old Delhi, a perfect chaos. Many times I’m the only woman there. At all time I’m the only foreigner. Young and old men display great interest in my camera lenses and my ass. My camera is my passport to many things I won’t do otherwise. With my camera I get forgiven for things otherwise frowned upon.
Right after dinner, I realize I don’t really know where my hotel is. I left a bit too quickly this afternoon with the Swiss doctors, laughter taking over my organized self. The banana leaf restaurant owner goes to great lengths to help me, 45 min later packs me on an auto-riksha with a full hotel address. He fingers my palm at goodbye. At school that meant you wanted to kiss. I chose to be naïve and think he means kissing his wife tonight.
I fly business class. Next to me is Maya, a Swiss doctor. She and her husband spent 3 weeks in a Ladakhi monastery which ran out of money to complete a children’s hospital. They came here to inspect how genuine their needs were. She’s on her way back to raise funds for the hospital in Switzerland. She tells me how bored she is with her job, how doctors fight over a patient back home. I think of the vast divides we live in.
We share a taxi to town, I decide to live in comfort at Connaught Place, they are in a saving mode so we split up. I forget my sweater in the taxi. They come back with it in the afternoon and convince me to join them in exploring Delhi. We have a lot of fun, laugh all the time. We do one touristy place after another, our driver speaks no English, and I’m getting bored. I invite them to the most expensive lunch place we can find, grateful for my sweater. We part, hug and kiss, saying we may meet someday again.
I do what I like best – wander the streets of Delhi. I walk into the heart of Old Delhi, a perfect chaos. Many times I’m the only woman there. At all time I’m the only foreigner. Young and old men display great interest in my camera lenses and my ass. My camera is my passport to many things I won’t do otherwise. With my camera I get forgiven for things otherwise frowned upon.
Right after dinner, I realize I don’t really know where my hotel is. I left a bit too quickly this afternoon with the Swiss doctors, laughter taking over my organized self. The banana leaf restaurant owner goes to great lengths to help me, 45 min later packs me on an auto-riksha with a full hotel address. He fingers my palm at goodbye. At school that meant you wanted to kiss. I chose to be naïve and think he means kissing his wife tonight.
posted by Magdalena Wszelaki @ 5:38 PM
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