Already a week has gone by since I arrived. It was very cold the first several days and I regretted sending Rob home from Frankfurt with all my winter sweaters. I wrapped myself in scarfs and layers and slept with the portable heater on, and now that its finally spring and a beautiful 70-80 F, I am delighted. I want to share with you my very distinct worlds. Previously I posted photos of the grounds at Zorba (the Village)...idyllic, green, peaceful.
The other world of mine is at the Embassy where I have been twice now and where I will have an afternoon concert tomorrow with the German Ambassadors wife, Ulla, a fine classical singer in her own right and a dear friend who has facilitated much for me here. Tomorrow she has invited some (mostly) ladies of the diplomatic community to the Residence for tea and Weimar ditties.
Between Zorba and the Embassy lie some 30km, a 45-minute trip in good traffic. Traffic in India is a new headspace. Each time I wish to leave the complex, someone calls a cab for me. I get a fairly beat-up old Ford Fiesta or some such thing and a good driver with adequate English. I book him for an 8 hour day or 80km and it costs me 800rs... $17. Not per km but for the entire day. He drops me at the security gate of the residence, parks his car and takes a long nap until I am finished. That works out best for him and is cheaper for me than were he to go home and come pick me up again later on. A finer car would cost 1300rs - just shy $30. Yes, it puts the whole one-way $35 (plus tip) trip from the Manhattan Theater District home to Brooklyn in real perspective.
In India, in leftover English fashion, the driving happens on the right side of the car. There are no seatbelts in the back. Speeds never reach Autobahn-caliber purely because of what all is on the road, the road that has no lane markers until you get closer to central Delhi and where the equivalent of a two-lane road is actually a 6 lane road. We share the pavement with other cars, trucks, motorized rickshaws and pedal rickshaws and motorcycles and bicycles and dogs, goats, the occasional monkey, the Sacred Cow and pedestrians. And they're pretty much ranked in that order, with the exception of the cow for whom all traffic stops. Basically, the more space you take up on the road the more significant you are. Monkeys are smaller than humans but much more savvy on their feet. There is a constant honking of horns as this sea of mobility gasps and oozes its way forward. I have yet to hear an angry shout or watch a fistfight, though they tell me they have those here too. All I observe, and its quite marvelous, is how it all integrates...just like the many and varied spices that begin their journey as one and merge into an incredible thing called curry.
The other world of mine is at the Embassy where I have been twice now and where I will have an afternoon concert tomorrow with the German Ambassadors wife, Ulla, a fine classical singer in her own right and a dear friend who has facilitated much for me here. Tomorrow she has invited some (mostly) ladies of the diplomatic community to the Residence for tea and Weimar ditties.
Between Zorba and the Embassy lie some 30km, a 45-minute trip in good traffic. Traffic in India is a new headspace. Each time I wish to leave the complex, someone calls a cab for me. I get a fairly beat-up old Ford Fiesta or some such thing and a good driver with adequate English. I book him for an 8 hour day or 80km and it costs me 800rs... $17. Not per km but for the entire day. He drops me at the security gate of the residence, parks his car and takes a long nap until I am finished. That works out best for him and is cheaper for me than were he to go home and come pick me up again later on. A finer car would cost 1300rs - just shy $30. Yes, it puts the whole one-way $35 (plus tip) trip from the Manhattan Theater District home to Brooklyn in real perspective.
In India, in leftover English fashion, the driving happens on the right side of the car. There are no seatbelts in the back. Speeds never reach Autobahn-caliber purely because of what all is on the road, the road that has no lane markers until you get closer to central Delhi and where the equivalent of a two-lane road is actually a 6 lane road. We share the pavement with other cars, trucks, motorized rickshaws and pedal rickshaws and motorcycles and bicycles and dogs, goats, the occasional monkey, the Sacred Cow and pedestrians. And they're pretty much ranked in that order, with the exception of the cow for whom all traffic stops. Basically, the more space you take up on the road the more significant you are. Monkeys are smaller than humans but much more savvy on their feet. There is a constant honking of horns as this sea of mobility gasps and oozes its way forward. I have yet to hear an angry shout or watch a fistfight, though they tell me they have those here too. All I observe, and its quite marvelous, is how it all integrates...just like the many and varied spices that begin their journey as one and merge into an incredible thing called curry.
And then when 45 minutes are up, I'm here at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, on German soil in fact. Or let me correct myself. I'm in the Ambassador's residence that adjoins the Embassy. Looking out over the sprawling lawn from the piano where I rehearse German cabaret with Felix Hofmann, a young pianist who happens to be here at the same time I am and is our accompanist for tomorrow, I see the tent outside and the pool and tennis courts beyond and my imagination strays to what it might have been like 80 years ago here in Delhi when the British owned the place. Imperialism is most definitely still in the air.
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