Delhi Post 1: Chinnu

This is the first entry in my blog after a gap of approximately two years! I'll be blogging about my post-bar exam travels. Right now I am in Delhi visiting my aunt and cousins. Here is the first installement . . . I woke up suddenly to see a little figure waddling around and opening the blinds near my bed. Light streamed into my eyes and made me aware of a slight headache. I looked more closely at the figure by the blinds, it was my cousin Chiranthan. He was saying something about it being morning, time to get up. I had arrived in Delhi very late the previous night to find out that my luggage had not come in from London Heathrow. While filling out an absurdly detailed form reporting the missing luggage, I struck up a momentary friendship with "Dips" (Dilip), a Delhi-ite software engineer in Germany whose luggage had also decided it would rather stay in Europe than endure the hot humidity of Delhi in August. Dips let me use his phone to call my aunt, Prathibha. She couldn't understand anything I was saying because the over-excited crowd of people around her were incessantly shouting, probably the names of people they had come to receive at the airport. The Delhi airport has two exits, which was just enough for my aunt and I to stand at one airport exit each and not find each other. While I searched for my aunt, I asked three European girls if I could borrow one of their phones to make a quick call. They were not as friendly as Dips. I finally found Prathibha Aunty, and after some explanation of my lack of luggage (I had only a backpack and two bottles of Red Label Johnny Walker), we were off to her apartment near Connaught Place. click for the full post It was close to two in the morning when we arrived at the apartment. Although I had eaten well on the plane, I pretended I had not eaten at all so that I could be polite and have some of the food that the cook had prepared. Predictably, my request for just a little food produced a banquet of palyas, chapatis, rice, dhaal, and the like. I could still feel the after effects my ill-advised meal when I woke, along with the headache that I attributed to mild sleep deprivation. Chiranthan was bustling about the blinds, making sure that the maximum amount of light would hit my face. "Why are you opening the blinds?" I asked shakily. "It's a country of free choice of action, isn't it?" he responded. This was my first introduction to Chiranthan after many years, and upon hearing his question, I had to remind myself that he had just turned ten. I was still half catatonic and was slowly grappling with Chiranthan’s reply. I wanted to ask him what should happen if one person's free choice infringes on another's right to sleep, but all that came out of my mouth was a kind of pathetic cooing: "Chinnu . . . please close the blinds." After this weak attempt at persuasion had failed, I asked him for the time. He informed me matter of factly that it was eight o' clock. I had slept on the plane and, it seemed, close to six hours in Chinnu’s crib-like bed (which Chinnu and his twin brother Chirayu insist on keeping). . . why was I so tired? I would later discover that it was closer to six when Chinnu decided that it was best I vacate his bed. Lack of luggage also meant lack of pajamas, so I had to ask Chinnu for my pants which were strewn on the floor at the foot of the bed. Once I was more modestly garbed, I got out of bed and attempted to engage little Chinnu in conversation. "How was your birthday party?" "It was over too large a range," he said, rather cryptically. "Geographic or temporal?" "Geography! Don't even get me started about that." So I was tired and had mispoken. I tried again. "Spatial or temporal?" Chinnu's eyes widened and he leaned towards me: "Gangsters always measure the area of a bomb blast . . . ," he said in tones of grave importance. " . . . I too measured the area of my birthday party and it was over too large a range." Many of Chinnu's claims are propositions he has derived for himself, through a kind of mathematical deduction from first principles. As for the gangsters, it was obvious that they would make careful measurements of radii of destruction because you can "imagine what a comedy it would be if the bomb exploded and spread over an area of only two feet." Indeed, this would leave the gangster in an awkward position. Chinnu was now off the ground, climbing the shelves of his chest of drawers. He soon extracted a children's book and Whiskers, a small stuffed tiger. Whiskers, by the way, is Chinese, on account of the intertwining of his whiskers which Chinnu continuously winds together in the manner of a cartoon Confucian sage. As we walked towards the kitchen, I tried to hug Chinnu, but when he turned to hug me back he fell into me and knocked his head into my jaw. Chinnu is very tall for his age, almost as tall as I am, and I had to remind myself one more time that he has just turned ten. I grabbed a book of my own, which I had flicked from my cousin’s place before leaving New York and we sat at the kitchen table to read. (Mukund, I hope it’s okay that I’ve borrowed your copy of The Argumentative Indian, I promise to return it in good condition when I get back). I tried to stay focussed, but Amartya Sen’s musings on the implications of Bengali film maker Satyajit Ray’s work regarding the problem of inter-cultural exchange proved too opaque for the early morning hours. I looked over at Chinnu who had found his specs and was poring intently over “Catch That Crocodile” (or, as Chinnu would say, “Catch That Crocodiiiiiiile”)—a thin book illustrated with whimsical blue line drawings resembling wood block prints. His book seemed more interesting than mine, so I read it with him. It is a funny story with many characters—the fruitseller, the policeman, the doctor, the wrestler—all members of a village who one by one attempt to catch a crocodile that has strayed from the river into the village. In the end, it is the overlooked and underestimated fisherwoman who “catches” the crocodile by luring it back to the river with a trail of tasty fish. As soon as we finished reading, Chinnu decided that we should make tea. I was a necessary part of the enterprise because Chinnu is not allowed to use the stove: "It ain't happenin' without you bub," Chinnu said in a mock Texas accent. Continued in the next post . . .