Evening interlude

Some things are too good not to be blogged about, so at the risk of overestimating my readers' interest to hear about my life here, I'm going to write about all the awesome things that happened in the last couple of hours. More on Jaipur to follow, I promise.

1. I walked to Khan Market. This is another thing that may not seem like a big deal -- and it probably isn't -- but for me, it's quite something. First of all, Delhi is not a walking city. There are either no sidewalks at all, or they're crowded with triple-parked cars, or they're just ridiculously busy. In my neighborhood, the first two definitely apply. As for the third: in several past experiences, there have been small crowds of young men who seem to be waiting around solely for the purpose of staring at foreign ladies. Still, since it was the early evening and the sun was still up but the heat was well under control, I decided to walk to Khan Market. (The embarrassment of taking an autorickshaw just two blocks -- really long blocks! -- down the street was also a deciding factor. I've already done that more than I would like, and at this point I just feel silly.) And so I actually did walk down the street to Khan Market. Not once was I bothered, or even stared at for longer than a few seconds. I don't know to what to attribute this wonderful change: perhaps it was because I was wearing a really long, black kurta and had my hair in a braid -- and thus could pass off, at least from the back or at a distance, for an Indian woman; perhaps it was because I just noticed the stares less, or cared less about them; perhaps it was because I was a woman walking alone, and couldn't possibly have been a tourist, what kind of weirdo tourist would do that? In any case, a walk in the cool evening felt wonderful.

2. I had an early dinner at the adorable (and overpriced, and touristy) Turtle Cafe above the Full Circle bookstore. I had (gasp!) a salad. Yes, at the Turtle Cafe they wash their lettuce and vegetables with purified water. Hey, tourism has done some great things for salad lovers in this country. I finished it off with a kiwi-cucumber smoothie. Fantastic.

3. Since I can't do laundry before I leave (one day is definitely not enough dhobi turnover time), I was forced -- forced -- to buy some more kurtas at the branch of FabIndia in Khan Market. But at less than ten dollars apiece, who's complaining? Ladies, listen good: if you want an outfit that is comfortable, flattering, and cheap, look no further than the kurta tops at FabIndia. They fit all shapes and sizes, hit at the not-too-conservative, not-too-flashy mid-thigh, come in three sleeve lengths, have a cute little dip in the neckline, and can make a pair of jeans look elegant. Best of all -- especially for the girl who likes to wear a single outfit in multiple colors (come on, repetition is reputation) -- they come in zillions of hues and patterns. Yes, FabIndia is probably the one place in the world (yes, yes, other than H&M, obviously) where I can feed my rather unfortunate but hopeless obsession with clothes.

4. As I was walking around the inside circle of Khan Market, I heard a loud, obnoxious autorickshaw-wallah yell "Hello! Hello! Hello! Madam! Hello! Hello! Madam! Hello!" and just as I was about to dismiss it as just another over-eager driver, I looked at his face. It was the same guy who drove me to the Old Delhi railway station and ripped me off so egregiously. I hope he was expecting me to smile and wave, because I mustered up the most contemptous facial expression I could imagine and shoved it in his direction. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that -- thankfully it was dark, so he couldn't see the details -- but he got the picture and drove the opposite way. I guess I had an opportunity to run after him and yell at him for cheating me, and (again, thankfully) I was too surprised to do anything beyond grimace. How strange.

5. Something stranger, also involving an autorickshaw. I was doing some friendly haggling (in my little Hindi) with a driver outside Khan Market for the short journey back, and just as I had given up and turned to find another rickshaw, this man stepped out of the first one. He was wearing cargo pants and a white tank top -- an older-ish man, muscled and fair, his gray hair buzzed close to his head. I assumed he was a tourist, but he spoke with an Indian accent. Or perhaps it was some other foreign accent, and I just didn't recognize it.

"Here," he smiles, "these are for you." And he held out a small bouquet of roses, the kind street kids try to sell you at intersections. They throw the roses in your lap, run away for a second, and then come back, hoping you'll pay them for the bouquet. Then they refuse to take the flowers back until the (usually long) light is about to turn green, and if you haven't paid up by then, they snatch the roses from your hands and run back to the curb. Anyway, this guy hands me flowers. And I look at him incredulously, like, are you serious?

"What, you don't like them?" He asks, with that smile. (Well, sir, they're quite pretty, but honestly this is like one of those moments at the airport when the security lady asks you if you've taken any packages from any unknown persons, and you really don't want to have to say yes. )

"They're beautiful but it's not necessary, really," I answer.

"No, please," he holds them out, "they're for you."

On the assumption that this is just a normal guy who didn't know what he was going to do with his Connaught Place intersection flowers, I take them. "Stay happy," he says. "Keep smiling."

Sure enough, he put a smile on my face. It's not every day a stranger gives you a bouquet of roses, just because he heard you haggling with a rickshaw driver in bad Hindi. I just hope they don't blow up any minute now-- but I performed a thorough investigation, and it seems like they're as harmless as they look.

That's right, folks: it's just another night here in Delhi.