Guest Blog by Melinda Little

I have only been in India a few days, but I am already overwhelmed by this country. (I blame part of that on extreme jet-lag from a twelve and a half hour time difference and twenty-three hours of travel, but the rest is due to the overload of senses that Delhi brings).

Old Delhi

Delhi is a dichotomy perfectly captured by the differences between Old Delhi and New Delhi. Old Delhi is what I think of when I think of India. One can experience this riding a bicycle rickshaw through the Chandi Chowk area in Old Delhi as Russell and I did yesterday. The smells of spices, food, human bodies and animals — all crammed together within the area’s narrow streets and alleys — explode upon one’s senses. Throngs of people dressed in brightly colored garb shop, work and connect in tightly packed markets and shops. Honking horns blare over the voices of shopkeepers hawking their wares and bustling shoppers and tourists living life.

New Delhi

Contrast that with the modern, beautiful city of New Delhi, India’s capitol, created by the British seventy years before Indians won their freedom back. It is a city of wide streets lined with the housing of India’s richest citizens, beautiful parks, religious sites and monuments. Here there are fashionable shops, beautiful hotels and modern industry, as well as modern apartment buildings for the middle and lower classes. It, too, is full of traffic in ways that only a densely populated city can be. Our 2:00 am drive from the airport to our hotel found the streets packed with traffic much like that which I experience in Houston during my morning and evening commutes; daytime traffic can seem like a parking lot.

Animals Everywhere

The city boasts a huge animal population. There are “public” animals everywhere – from dogs to monkeys to cows. Walking down the streets one can see monkeys in trees all over the city in both Old and New Delhi. Cows are in the roads in the middle of traffic, and there are dogs wherever you look. I had always heard about the cows roaming the streets in India — that did not surprise me — but the number of monkeys and dogs blew me away.

Hinduism

Hinduism is one of the major religions in the country. From this religion came the Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. (The country also boasts one of the largest populations of Muslims in the world. Muslims have influenced the history of India from its architecture to its forms of government. We visited a mosque yesterday that can host as many as 25,000 worshipers at one time). Religious values are a huge part of Indian culture.

Hindu followers value all living things because they believe all living things have a piece of God in them. Consequently they do not cut down trees, they value water and they feed their first loaves of bread each day to the “public” dogs who roam the streets — even before they even feed themselves. Their worldview reflects this belief and it affects the way Indians treat their land, animals and people. One sees example of this in Sikh temples: they feed meals to all who come every thirty minutes all day long. We visited one temple which serves 35,000 people a day every day of the year.

Ecological Challenges

Sadly, the use of products like plastic bags and paper products has changed the landscape of the country. Just twenty years ago vendors in the markets served take-away food on banana leaves and they served tea in clay cups – both biodegradable. Now, the vendors use plastic and paper containers extensively, and you can see this trash lining streets. India is working to clean up its environment and — compared to some of the other countries we have visited — they are making progress. You can see this commitment on new currency: it features an image of spectacles with words expressing the goal of a green environment.

On to Jaipur

Delhi is an incredible city, but was just stop one on our twelve day excursion to India. Next stop Jaipur!

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