Of Mice and Monkeys

Alright, after my last long post about Masdar City, I am finally ready to move on in my writing from Dubai to Delhi. Before I discussed Masdar, I left off on a jet to Delhi, ready to start my adventures in India. Before landing in India, I had twice experienced developing nations—once in Kenya and once in China—and had seen just how different those two locations are. Nairobi, for example, is a very polluted city with dilapidated buildings, lots of small poorly maintained shops, and degraded public spaces. Shanghai and Beijing, on the other hand, are very appearance-conscious and thus maintain cleaner streets, better public areas, and visually pleasing building fronts of the most part even if the structures beneath are week or degraded. Given that India is more often compared to China than Kenya in the media, my anticipation was that Delhi would be more along the lines of Beijing than Nairobi as the country’s capital.

When I arrived at the airport, the terminal certainly had a better appearance than Nairobi, and soon I was in a black and yellow cab bound for my cheap hotel in a sector of the city known as Paharganj. Yet on the entire drive there, I kept wondering “where’s the city?” Few lights lined the roads or the buildings and it seemed as though we were constantly traveling through suburban areas that were poorly maintained. Sidewalks were lacking, trees in need of trimming hung over roads littered with pollution, and no institutional buildings or skyscrapers could be seen. Driving was an adventure too, and all I can say is that I’m glad my cabbie seemed to know how to handle the roads because I would not want to be in his position. Only later did I learn that this all was just a normal trip through the heart of Delhi.

We arrived at Paharganj and I must say that I was shocked by what met my eyes. Burning heaps of trash illuminated the visibly crumbling buildings lining a narrow street filled to the brim with motor scooters, cycle rickshaws, pedestrians, hawkers, stray dogs, and cows. The assault of toxic chemicals from the fires, manure, and putrid water lining the roads was a shock to my nose, as was the cacophony of barking, mooing, clanging of bells and dishes, and shouts of those selling vacation packages all over the nation. How could this be the capital of India?

Finding my hotel was a challenge too, but thanks to a quasi-helpful man (he was helpful only until I had declined his offer for a several thousand dollar tour through the Indian state of Rajasthan), I found my way. Settling in to the dormitory room I had booked, I found myself alone in the four-bed room for the night. Well, or so I thought. After unpacking a bit, showering (in the cold water) and then lying down in my sleeping bag (I didn’t trust the cleanliness of the sheets provided), I saw my roommate appear. He poked his head out of a small space next to one of the other beds and tentatively emerged into the room. However when he saw me, my rodent roommate quickly scampered back into his hole, not to appear again until the next day. Throughout my four day stay, this little mouse made several cameos on my floor and, hopefully, none on my bed while I slept.

Needless to say, when I finally left that hotel in Paharganj after two separate stays of four and two days (I’ll explain why the punctuation in a moment), I was relieved to be in a bit cleaner area. Moreover, each morning I stayed there, I awoke with a headache because of the exhaust fumes of the motorbikes in the alley outside. The fumes entered the room and did not leave thereby perfuming it with the wonderful smell of diesel. Because of this, each morning I stayed in Paharganj, I rose to leave as early as possible and did not return until evening. The other reason for this was that simply leaving the street on which the hotel was located was a trial. Every other step, I was corralled by a “friend” trying to lure me into his shop for tea only to then try and sell me on a trip to Kashmir, Rajasthan, Goa, or some other location within India. Some even offered hash or ganja, others harder drugs, all of which I politely declined. I suppose a number of tourists get trapped in these schemes but I was determined not to become one of them. By leaving early, I often could avoid such hawkers, and returning late gave me an excuse to make a beeline to my hotel.

When I got to explore New Delhi, I was surprised that I could not for the life of me find a visible city center. Whereas Shanghai and Beijing, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and even Nairobi have distinct downtowns with tall buildings and imposing edifices, Delhi seemed not to have the same. Certainly there was the area built by the British which is very monumental in nature, but there was no true center of town even there. The government buildings here were not tall and were masked by trees to the point where they were not visible from any great distance. The other remnants of the British occupation seemed so degraded and exploited by various uses that they too no longer represented a visual center of the town. Everything I passed seemed polluted and dilapidated—preventative maintenance seemed not to be a concept here, and sprawl rather than increased density seemed the norm. For someone interested in sustainability, both of these were interesting and disheartening trends. Sure I saw a lot of green space and trees, which should be good, but when it was covered over with litter, could it really be called greenery?

A couple of young computer engineers I met in a park by Connaught Place explained this phenomenon to me by saying that people in India did not really care about throwing trash away properly. For many years they just discarded whatever was not used and so they continue this. Parents and grandparents carelessly throw away packaging and unwanted items and children mimic this. Unfortunately now, there is more trash and less natural trash than in days of yore when waste was mostly natural products. They said that this practice formed one of three cores of India—“Pollution, Population, Corruption” or PPC. This, they said, was all you need to know to understand the problems of India. Certainly, I thought, this was worth remembering and watching throughout my stay.

As my first weekend approached, I figured it would be nice to get out of Delhi while I had a lot of flexibility and see if all cities were like this. When I found that the train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal was already full, I turned my sights elsewhere. With the help of Lonely Planet, I learned that not far from Delhi lay the city of Chandigarh, the first master-planned city in independent India done by none other than Le Corbusier. The architecture and planning enthusiast in me jumped at the chance to see a work by so famous, and controversial, a personality as Le Corbusier, and soon I had booked my tickets to and from the city.

I arrived after a pleasant journey to find a city completely unlike Delhi and very interesting in terms of its composition. Unlike the seemingly unplanned and sprawling Delhi, Chandigarh was a perfect grid laid out in Le Corbusier’s stark philosophy of straight lines and proportions in sectors. Keeping with his brutal and honest ideals, the buildings featured exposed materials (concrete and brick mostly) and appeared to me after 50 years of weathering as though they were stone or rock monuments cast starkly against the lush green trees in the foreground. Among these monoliths lay wide roads built for many more cars than Chandigarh now sees but at least, unlike most of India, featuring pedestrian and bicycle paths on which I could comfortably walk beneath the trees as I explored.

My first stop was the architecture and planning museum which to me was a fascinating tour of the city’s history and transformation from a curving, organic plan by the original American designers to the grid of Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier’s fascination with the human form and its proportions was evident throughout the design, from the “head” of the city with the government offices (the only buildings he personally designed) to the “heart” of the shopping center right in the middle of the city and the “lungs” as the green belts throughout the city. Seeing how the city developed was really interesting, especially for me being interested in city development in India and other nations. From here, I went to learn more about the development and the man behind it all at the Le Corbusier museum. Here, fascinating letters showed how Nehru supported Le Corbusier and the back and forth between politicians, architects, and the master planner in how the city should be built and executed. Pictures told the story and showed the rise of the city and Le Corbusier’s architectural masterpieces at its head. The whole narrative was fascinating, and I encourage you to learn more about it if you have an interest in architecture or planning—it’s a fascinating story.

Perhaps what fascinated me most about it though was how much sustainability, though under different names, came into the planning. Long before that was a buzz word, Le Corbusier and his team were carefully planning how far would be reasonable for people to walk, what the best way to incorporate natural spaces into the city would be to provide fresh air and open space, and how to best incorporate both cars (seen as a needed form of transit) with pedestrians and cyclists. These questions are now part of the dialogue typical of sustainable cities, but to see them discussed back then was interesting to me. Le Corbusier focused heavily on the size of the sectors to ensure that each was walkable in 15-20 minutes by a typical pedestrian and that there would be quiet streets on which people would feel safe walking. He created 7 types of roads ranging from highways to pedestrian and cycle paths and ensured that both ends of the spectrum networked across the city so cars and people could easily and safely move. Such thoughts about segregation of traffic were very progressive for post-war India and certainly are unique to Chandigarh—Delhi on the other hand often lacks any pedestrian paths. Looking at Chandigarh, it seemed strange to me that so many of the innovations which Le Corbusier included are just now seeming to be rediscovered and included in planning and design. As controversial as his concrete and brick buildings may be, they do respond well to the climate without space conditioning (you will see A/Cs though because they are also filled far over capacity). It seems that between the time of Chandigarh and now, there was a period of lost knowledge that we are now overcoming. Some might argue that this was the freedom associated with central air-conditioning—suddenly architects no longer were bound by climate in designing and so could make what they wished; only when environmentalism and oil prices checked this philosophy did the climate science behind the older buildings get rediscovered.

Whatever the reason that Le Corbusier’s city seemed so advanced even now, it was fascinating to consider as I walked the streets and looked at the sectors. I even made it out to the artificial lake he created both to provide a place of relaxation and to help cool the climate while replenishing the groundwater. This was an important environmental feature for a forward-thinking city trying to ensure continued resource access.

As I left, I met two students from the animation school in Chandigarh who kindly accompanied me for dinner at their favorite chicken restaurant. After some good food and good conversation, we parted ways and I headed back to my hotel for the evening.

The next morning I woke and headed to a very interesting place, and another adventure in sustainability in some way. Lonely Planet calls it a trip down one man’s rabbit hole into wonderland, and certainly that is true—stepping into the Nek Chand Fantasy Rock Garden is like stepping into a really interesting miniature wonderland. Built in secret by a road worker out of discarded objects he collected, the garden is now an Indian institution and a monument to the creativity of one man and the beauty that can result from a vision and lots of trash. Now I say this is a trip into the world of sustainability as well because this shows exactly what can be done with waste—it is not just for throwing away and decomposing. There is beauty in garbage, maybe not all of it, and maybe not everyone can see it, but rather than throwing things away, why not make art? Why not make a wonderland in your backyard? It certainly was an interesting visit and trip, and I recommend it if you can stop through—it’s an interesting morning.

From here, I made a pilgrimage to the sites of Le Corbusier’s buildings—the government buildings he made in Chandigarh and his only actual works in the city. True to their pictures and his style, they featured exposed elements, monumental structures, and very intricate geometric patterns, mostly based on rectangles and squares. As an architectural buff, they were very interesting to view, even though I don’t know that I personally like the style. I certainly was impressed with but did not really like the Open Hand monument that was his crowning sculpture on the city and its symbol. For me, though, the whole trip was interesting simply to see the world of such a divisive and to this day controversial figure in architecture history.

From these structures, I headed through the beautiful rose garden which Le Corbusier planned within the city to spend my final hours before catching a train back to Delhi. I met here another new friend with whom I conversed for a while in the beauty of the garden near sunset before parting to catch our respective trains. Yet rather than have my day end nicely here, I have two more interesting experiences to relate.

One of the most interesting sights in India, and unfortunately one of the most common, is that of a rickshaw driver or pedestrian paused on the side of the road, facing a wall and relieving himself. Perhaps it is a lack of public facilities or just a cultural phenomenon whereby people are not bothered by such actions—perhaps it has been done for years and no one thinks anything of it. Either way, coming from a Western perspective, it bothers me mostly because it makes the city smell and I don’t really want to walk through other peoples’ urine on my daily strolls. Now this did not bother me in Chandigarh as I did not see it much, but what did bother me was that when I arrived at the train station, I found out part of the reason why this is still a problem in today’s world. Needing a pit stop before the train, I headed for the sign that said “Men’s Toilet.” As I started to walk in, I was stopped by a call from behind. Turning, I saw a man holding out his hand from behind a table. Confused, I looked quizzically at him until he pointed to a sign that explained it was 5 rupees to use the bathroom. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him incredulously if he wanted me to pay 5 rupees to use the urinal. He must’ve understood because he nodded, and I was astounded. Here guys were using the side of the station for a bathroom, and instead of trying to stop this, they were encouraging it by charging to urinate in a sanitary condition! I would’ve explained this to the man demanding money but I could tell it would have fallen on ears that only comprehended Hindi, so instead I took my money in disgust and walked away. That is the only time that I have felt compelled to use the wall to relieve myself, but I held my dignity until the train arrived.

In the meantime occurred the other story with which I wanted to end my post, coming full circle to the title. As I waited for the train, I saw a little monkey sitting on the side of the tracks having a snack. By the time I went to photograph him, he had run away. Shrugging, I sat back until I realized that I had to cross to the other track to catch my train. I turned up the stairs and saw my little friend again, now sitting on the railing of the stairs. Pulling out my camera, I advanced a few steps suddenly the mother monkey jumped down onto the landing. I halted and brought the camera up, ready to shoot when suddenly the monkey screeched, bared its teeth and advanced a few steps toward me. Jumping, I ran back down the stairs, probably to the delight of the locals to whom, as a friend put it, monkeys are like squirrels. Only after the monkey had cleared the landing, did I dash up the landing and over to the proper platform quickly, careful not to be scared once more. In retrospect, the incident was funny, but at the time, that, as Lonely Planet calls them, “testosterone-charged macaque” had my heart beating and my mind visualizing monkey bites and rabies shots.

So after a healthy scare by an angry monkey, I cruised safely back to Delhi and my mouse roommate at least for another night or two.