Getting to know India!
- Claudia Cáceres
- Aug 6, 2019
- 5 min read
Hola hola! I was supposed to go to fieldwork this weekend but due to some issues in the office, we will wait until next week. I would take advantage of this post to summarize my impressions after three weeks in Delhi.
Before coming here I tried to read/watch videos as much as I could about India’s culture, people, traditions, politics, etc. Also, very good friends of mine sent me detailed instructions on how to make the best out of my internship and life here. What’s more, I am from one of the hottest cities in Peru (Piura) and I lived a long period in its arguably most hectic city, Lima. With that, I thought to myself: I am ready for it!
However, I could not have been more wrong. For sure, all the preparation helped but it was not sufficient to make navigation of the city easier or to answer all the instant questions that come to my mind every time I visit a new place or meet new people. There are some things that since my arrival to Delhi, have kept me in a mixture of confusion, surprise, and sweat (hahaha).
Que calor!!: the week before we arrived in India, Delhi recorded all-time high temperatures of 48º Celcius*. That same week I received tons of messages from my Indian classmates begging me to stay hydrated and to avoid walking a lot. Being from Piura did help, but how the heat is felt in Delhi is insane. Most of the time we are in an office with AC so it is kind of manageable. But it did give me a whole other level of appreciation to people that live or work in the streets (Delhi is full of street food carts, street commerces, etc). I don't think that saying: “they are used to it” is enough. The heat only adds up to the number of problems that working in the street represents (no insurance, no safety net for unemployment, nothing.). And again, they are always happy to help and happy to share their day with us.
Culture, colors and its people: 15 years ago my idea of India was pretty ignorant and precarious (I guess I took it from the TV). 5 years ago I fell in love with its culture and architecture which transformed that idea in one with more shades and content. But being here has reinvented that idea. In Delhi, you could find people from all over India (there is a reason why it is the migrant capital of India*) which have brought with themselves a little bit of their own villages, expressed in their art, food, and traditions. In my first week, I went to The India Gate on a Saturday afternoon, the number of families that were there was astounding. Everyone running, taking pictures (and asking us for selfies with them), laughing, swimming in a public fountain, all in all it was overwhelming. But again, in the middle of that mess, everyone seemed happy and like they were enjoying their weekend. Yet, I am still missing big parts of its day by day and history and cannot stop feeling touched by the amount of poverty that can be spotted in most of Delhi corners.
Drivers, Noise and Traffic Jams: in Lima, before HKS, I remembered reading lots of post about how driving during rush hour in Lima could be one of the worst things to do (they even ranked the traffic jams in different cities of the world and lima was always in the top tier)*. So I thought: oh yeah, I got this! But I was not ready for that at all. Going from one place to another in Delhi by car is kind of confusing (a lot of streets are closed by police or by the people for security reasons), and sometimes a bit irrational (I guess, from my perspective). There appears to be a written manual between all the drivers that has constant honking as a basic part of it which causes extreme noise pollution that most people seem comfortable with or, at the very least, have gotten used to it. But the most surprising part is that this written manual seems to work perfectly, everyone in the streets understands each other and they do not complain or yell when somebody is breaking a formal traffic rule (or at least it is less constant than in Latam). Among the hectic streets, there is a vibe of calmness among the drivers.
What is development? In my internship interview, I explained my future plans and what topics I wanted to explore. They instantly suggested that India would be a perfect match for me. And till now, it certainly has been. Being here has made me question once again what development should look like. India is a country with similar poverty rates to Peru, Delhi one of its more important cities (I guess comparable to Lima). But how I thought development should look like in an urban city (and the concept most policymakers have in Peru) is super different from what that concept represents in a city like Delhi. While Delhi developed an efficient public transportation system, Lima is still in diapers when it comes to this topic. On the other hand, every day more streets in Lima are paved and cleaned, while holes in the Delhi streets seem to be more a rule rather than an exception. Even though both cities are huge and have several shades within their population and neighborhoods, it seems that the way both cities develop their priorities to define the development concept is like black and white. This kind of reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my closest friends from the MPAID that is interning in a village in Peru. She sent me a pretty clear message about what is development. Combining her impressions working in a rural village in Peru and how what they need is not necessarily attached to the things we would usually have in urban cities but more to services tailored to their context. Still lots of questions I guess, and still more info and experiences to double the number of questions and at the same time be more motivated to find more answers.
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I am leaving for a field trip next week. I will visit the state of Jharkhand and the districts of Ranchi, Gulam, and Kunthi where TRI is developing most of its education and health initiatives and there are aspirational fellows working with the district administration. Stay tuned!
This post was written in my third week in Delhi! Due to some connectivity issues, I could not post it sooner!
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