Rides by choice, and by trickery.

This week is Davali week. Davali, also called Dawali, is a festival celebrating light. I’m not positive of its full original purpose and meaning, but now it is celebrated by giving one another pretty packages of nuts, sweets and dried fruit, and by blowing up as many fireworks and firecrackers as you can get your hands on. Yesterday in particular was the day before the day before Davali, and apparently labeled the luckiest shopping day of the entire year. We didn’t have any clue that there was anything special about it, so Anna gave us a city wide scavenger hunt to complete. The main point of it was to get to know the city, talk to people, practice our (very bad) Hindi and Urdu, and get used to taking rickshaw’s places. It was a fantastic idea, and it was fun for the first hour. We left the house by auto rickshaw at around 12:30pm, with the goal of getting everything completed by 7:00pm. There were four pages of things to do, and as we set off to the first destination, Connaught Place, it all seemed easily achievable in just over six hours.

Connaught Place is more an area than a specific place. Within this area is an entirely underground mall. It consists of several large circles of shops within each other, or it may have been a giant spiral, I’m not too sure. We got lost instantly. Not knowing what entrance we went in didn’t help in the slightest. With merchandise hanging from every surface possible, and hordes of bodies flowing down the spiral, it was reminiscent of Old Delhi but indoors. To top it off, every second step taken was permeated with calls from shops on either side shouting through the masses, “Sir? Madam? Ladies clothing? Belts? Jackets? Movies and DVD’s? Hellllooo? Mam? Pashmina shawls? HELLLLOOOO???”

After getting coerced into buying another belt of “real leather sir, look I’ll try to light it on fire and it won’t burn. See? Real leather!” we got out of there as fast as we could. Alright, what’s next on the list, and how in the world are we supposed to find it? Janpath Rd Market. Pronounced “John-pot”. As we stare blankly at our map, still bewildered by the shopping mayhem, a young man saunters up to us and starts making small talk. He eventually asks if we are lost, and if he could be of any help. We attempt to explain what a scavenger hunt is, (nearly impossible by the way) and how we need to find a travel agent, and the cheapest way to Agra as our next thing to complete. “Oh! The Taj Mahal!!” He exclaims with much exuberance, and begins to enquire as to when we are going, and where else we are going, and how long we will be there, and how far we’ve gone so far, and a bunch of other things. We again, try to explain that we are not actually going there yet, this is just for the hunt, and no, he doesn’t have to book our tickets for us because we are not actually going. He doesn’t get it. He takes us to a government run tourist information joint that thankfully actually got us the information we needed even though it wasn’t a travel agent. Now for Janpath? Or are we there already… Assuming that this fellow has gone on his way to meet up with his “friend who was to meet him in Palika Bazaar” (the spiral mall), we make our way out of the building only to be jumped upon once again. “Did you book your tickets to Agra?” Oh for heavens sake he just doesn’t get it does he. Whatever. We ask him to show us where Janpath Market is because we need to buy something uniquely Kashmiri. He perks up even more (didn’t think he could) and says he knows of an excellent shop that is all Kashmiri goods. Fair enough. We proceed to follow him through a maze of traffic, shoppers, shops and buildings, only to find ourselves face to face with a very large stand-alone building with a parking lot. Stand-alone buildings are rare, and therefore instantly mean very expensive. Never mind the fact it had a parking lot. Nowhere has a parking lot. It’s wasted space! We go in anyway. Big mistake. Gazing around at the beautifully displayed merchandise, and thoroughly enjoying the air conditioning, we are stopped by a salesman who insists he give us a guided tour, beginning with the Pashmina Shawls. They are all admittedly gorgeous, and softer than anything I have ever felt in my lifetime. Then he tells me how much they are. The one I was admiring was Rs. 40,000 (rupees) which is about $1000 Canadian. Hah. Right. After showing us all the grades, I manage to find one that is Rs. 600, or about $15 CAN. Much better, and still pretty soft. He recommends we take a look upstairs, which is all jewelry. We leave as quickly as possible because it’s all too beautiful to resist. Thinking we had finally lost our little friend that won’t leave us alone, we speed-walk back to the road. He comes out of he shadows and asks us where we need to go next. AAAGGGG! We are supposed to be doing these ourselves to get to know the city by walking around and taking rickshaws, but with this guy, we haven’t actually made it to any of the places we were supposed to go!! We have just spent two hours with him, and we are still on the first page. Marc tells him our friends have called and that we must go home. Buddy boy flags down a rickshaw, and in breakneck speed Hindi, tells the driver where to go and how to get there. It is to our home, but by way of some government shopping center for tourists. Drat, we’ve been scammed. By this point I have a migraine, and the exhaust from the millions of vehicles is choking me. A thousand horns create a deafening roar all around us as we drive, and all the light, sound and commotion make me want to bury my head in a hole.
Having no real intention of going all the way home, especially in this traffic, we hop off at Humayans Tomb. Finally something familiar. We hung out there for a few minutes then hopped in yet another auto rickshaw bound for somewhere else on our list. The rest of the day is a blur, and that’s alright with me. I remember spending hours in traffic, getting fireworks, and nearly getting conned into the same trap as earlier in the day, several more times. Everyone seems so helpful, but that’s their job. They see white people, they assume you are tourists, and try to take you to these government sponsored “Emporiums” or markets, where everything is overpriced, and they inevitably get a cut by bringing you there.

It took two hours in wretched traffic in a painfully slow rickshaw, but we finally made it home. Needless to say, we came far from completing the hunt. Perhaps we shall attempt it once more when the city isn’t in a perpetual state of boxing-day shopping.