Incredible India!

I recently read Shantaram, a book by Gregory David Roberts. An incredible story and even better story telling.

The book takes the readers through many emotions as pages turn, but amongst the many emotions that it made me experience, it left me ashamed the most. It made me realize that a foreigner knows my country and my people better than I myself do. To sprout my self-esteem I set out for the tour of the city (Delhi), with my friend Swapnil, trying to know the city a little better.

And as they say, Incredible India!, I fell in love with my country all over again. On Saturday night, with clock towers ready to strike midnight, we drove through Connaught Place past Hotel InterContinental towards the deserted streets of Daryaganj. The city that was engulfed in the darkness and quiet of the night suddenly transformed as we took a right turn, it was an entirely different city.

With a lickety-split, we found ourselves out of the dark, quiet night and into the midst of a busy market place, which was engulfed by the sound of sermons from Jama Masjid- one of the biggest mosques of India. The mosque is a plethora of grandeur, with its prayer hall capable of holding over 25000 devotees.


North East Entrance of Jama Masjid

Amidst hundreds of smells and sounds, we parked our bike facing the rear entrance of the Jama Masjid. There were street vendors selling assortments of non-veg delights and with every step we took, we found ourself engulfed in the aroma arising from the Shammi Kebabs, Chicken tikkas, Fried fishes and many more gastronomical delights some of which are confined to the dusty bylanes of old Delhi.

As we pushed our way through the crowded street, we walked past Karim- a mughlai kitchen believed to be employing recipes that Mughal king's used to enjoy. Pity, we had food from our earlier escapade and were already full. So, we let it pass and continued our tour through, what seemed like a disaster in making, with hundreds of high capacity electric wires zig-zagged over our heads and streets so narrow that fire tenders can never reach there.

But, it was no time to worry, it was rather the time to enjoy the "Bread Halwa" a dessert made from bread and khoya. For a mere 10 INR, it was a treat.

As we moved further, one of the widely accepted theories -The poorest people in the world are also the most humble- got validated once again. Amidst the array of busy shops, I spotted a bakery, that seemed more like a furnace, with two visibly poor fellows baking rusks on a brick floor oven using a long stemmed spatula. The aroma virtually brought me to a stand still as I watched the freshly baked rusks being picked up from the oven. Noticing me, one of the fellows extended his spatula in my direction, and I promptly picked up two rusks from the blade of the spatula. He really surprised me by not accepting any money, despite the late night hard work he was putting in an inferno to earn his living. The warm rusk was gratifying.

As we started moving back towards the bike, the sweet tooth that I am, we stopped at a sweets shop, that I made a mental note of, when we earlier walked past it. I noticed a dark colored sweet and was almost sure that I want to try it when I was told that the dish is called "Habshi Halwa". Habshi in Arabic refers to a dark African. It was undoubtedly one of the best sweets I had eaten so far. I liked it so much that I searched the net just to find a photograph to bejewel this blog.

                              Habshi Halwa

As we left, I felt that after 26 years of growing up in this beautiful country- where over 22 languages are spoken, where all the seasons can be enjoyed, where people from over 7 different religions live in peace, which has given the world the number system, the yoga and the ayurveda, whose economy is giving the rest of the world goosebumps- I am still an alien.

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