Delhi
Tuesday morning started bright and early witha trip out to a pottery village. Originally I had imagined a rural village, but Delhi is such a huge city, that we drove for over an hour and still hadn't entered the rural village I had imagined. I soon learned that the "village" we were visiting was just a portion of the city. I have never experienced anything like driving through the streets of these Indian cities. I've never seen such density of bodies, such poor and filthy living conditions, or so many smiling brown faces. Every time we got in the bus I tried to snag a window seat so I could just watch as we drove. It was fascinating and horrifying, intriguigning and humbling, and this time, we were able to get out and walk the streets with the residents of this pottery village.
It was indescribable. For the most part, the people were very curious about us. As we walked through the village crowds of curious faces would appear. Many of the parents wanted us to take pictures of their children, you could tell they were so proud - some things are universally similar - like thinking your kids are the cutest ones on the block!
The tour itself was led by an Indian man who had an MBA and who had started his own tour operation with the goal of introducing tourists (both Indian and foreign) to more remote and unknown portions of the city. His goal is to raise awareness and spread the tourist dollars more evenly. As part of our tour the guide walked us around a few blocks of this pottery village.
The village is unique because it survives on only one trade. Most of the potters specialize in utilitarian pottery, specifically clay pots that will be sold to nurseries. However, there are a handful of true artists in the village and we were able to step into one families home/workshop. It was truly a humbling experience because this well to do family, that consisted of a husband and wife, their two sons and their wives, and a couple of children all lived in a two bedroom home with two beds. I didn't see any other furniture, a closet for extra clothes, a kitchen with space to store food, or any sort of bathroom facility. This family, although very humble by my standards, were real artists and had a robust trade. They pulled out some of their inventory and we were sold. I mean, we were really sold! We just kept finding treasures and were so happy to know where the money was going.
After the tour we returned to the village green where a handful of potters wheels were set up so we could try our hand at spinning a clay pot.
By this time, it seemed that the entire village had turned out to watch our pottery lessons. It was a really unique feeling to be such a novelty. The whole morning was just amazing, a truly unforgettable experience.
After we finished at the pottery village we headed to FabIndia. It was only supposed to be about a twenty minute drive, but after a ticket and some seriously damaged roads we finally arrived after almost an hour and a half. This was a very unique meeting because the CEO walked in, gave us a 5 minute intro into eir business and the challenges they faced then opened the rest of the time up for us to provide them with ideas for solutions. Surprisingly, I felt like I had a really good idea to contribute-I was not expecting that to happen! One of the challenges this company has is that real estate is extremely expensive and they would like to be able to move more inventory without leasing more store space. I had the idea that one solution could be to create a "Mary Kay" model, or a Tupperware model, where some of their best customers host parties in their homes and sell merchandise without paying for store space. The CEO seemed to really like this idea and even wrote it down on his list of possible solutions. It was surprisingly meaningful for me to feel like I had something creative to contribute to the business aspect of the trip!
We finished the day at Dilli Haat, an outdoor bazaar. They were having a weaver's exhibition the day we arrived so we were completely overwhelmed with the sheer volume of beautiful fabrics, scarves, tapestries, etc. We were able to find darling outfits for the girls, beautiful silk scarves for our moms/babysitter, and even a cashmere/pashmina blend scarf for ourselves!
Wednesday was a power-packed day. We started the day by meeting with Kiran Bedi, former police officer, traffic commissioner, and social activist. She is an extremely powerful meeting and we were all changed by our time with her. She spoke passionately about privilege and responsibility. She spoke powerfully about the influence her parents, and specifically her father, had had in her story. As the parents of two young daughters, Kylan and I were especially affected and were prompted to think more deeply about the ways we encourage our daughters to have the confidence that they can do anything they set their minds to.
Ms. Bedi shared a famous anecdote from the time when she was serving as the traffic commissioner of Delhi. When she first came into this position, the traffic in Delhi was outrageous. Delhi is a city of 20 million people, and the growth of the population has far exceeded the growth of the infrastructure. One of the first things Ms. Bedi did when she came into office was to take a morning drive through the streets of the city I order to better understand the needs she could address one of the most obvious problems she saw was the obstruction of traffic by simple accidents, stalled trucks, etc. So, she contracted with some private tow trucks to help her clear the roads of these obstructions as well as to tow any illegally parked vehicles that didn't move after a warning. Each vehicle would recieve one warning, then if they failed to move they would be towed. No exceptions. On one occasion she received a phone call from one of her outsourced tow trucks regarding an illegally parked car that had been towed. The car had been given ample warnings, but was not responding. The operative knew the rules and proceeded to tow the car, until he realized who's car he was about to tow. He called Ms. Bedi to confirm that he should tow the Prime Minister of India's car, and she assured him that if Indira Gandhi's driver was parked illegally, then she should certainly be towed. No exceptions! What an incredible example of integrity of cause. I felt that I could take a lesson from Ms. Bedi about living a life free of exceptions.
Our next two speakers of the day were equally high profile. We met with Mr. Shashi Tharoor, former ambassador to the UN, and currently serving as the equivalent of the US Secretary of Education. He's spent years working with foreign policies and has just recently made the switch to a more domestic focus regarding education. He was an incredibly charismatic and well-spoken, but proved to be a disappointingly typical politician, skillfully avoiding giving a straight answer to any of the questions we asked him-a somewhat disappointing reality of how politicians operate.
Before our final meeting we stopped for dinner and some shopping at the famous Connaught Place, one of Delhi's most famous shopping centers, and home of the fifth most expensive commercial real estate in the world. Our bus had to drop us off a couple of blocks away from the shopping center and we were able to enjoy the always exciting adventure of walking through the streets and open air markets of Delhi. We were surprised to see the state of disrepair at CP. knowing it is such high value real estate caused me to assume that it would be clean, well maintained, and organized. That was not at all the case! It was common to see a homeless man sleeping outside a Louis Vuitton store, to see a ragged beggar child tring to shine the shoes of the wealthy there shopping designer labels. The sidewalks were filthy, broken, and crowded - common sight in Delhi, but not what I expected to find at such a high value mall.
The final meeting of the day was with Dr. Abdul Kalam, former President of India. He met us in his home, and answered questions for an hour. It was humbling to be in the presence of someone like him, but we soon learned that the combination of advanced age and a lifetime of politics left Dr. Kalam, like Mr. Tharoor, seemingly unable to provide clear, distinct answers to our questions. Another slight disappointment, but still an inspiring visit to one of India's former leaders.
India Gate in New Delhi
Delhi is the capital of India and is home to many grand and beautiful buildings and monuments. This particular monument, the India Gate, is one of the most famous in New Delhi. It was built in 1921 to honor the soldiers that were killed in WW1. Because so much of our trip was spent in business and political meetings, I was especially interested to visit some of the historical landmarks, such as this. The gate did not disappoint. As you can see, the design and architecture are beautiful, and seeing it at sunset was like the icing on the cake. However, our experience at the India Gate will not be remembered for the beauty of the architecture. The day before we arrived in Delhi a young woman was gang raped on a public bus. This horrific crime received a lot of publicity not only in India, but all around the world. India is still a very chauvinistic country, and in many ways women are still treated quite poorly. This tragedy sparked a huge amount of anger in young Indians, and the night we tried to visit the gate we were unable to get very close to it because of the thousands of protestors, law enforcement, and media that were there. It was heartbreaking to follow the story of this poor woman while we were in India (she ended up dying from her injuries a few days after we returned from the trip), but it is kind of exciting to think of the changes for good that could come from it.
No comments:
Post a Comment