We had a 48-hour layover in Delhi.
A cruel and unusual tease for someone who had never set foot in India.
How’s anyone supposed to explore one of the world’s most captivating cities in two lousy days?
Given the brief nature of our visit, my husband and I did something we rarely do: nothing. We did no research. Made no dinner reservations. Booked no borderline-elitist-skip-the-line tickets. Nada. We figured we’d sleep off the Toronto-Delhi jet lag, order room service at weird hours, and hope to make it back to India before too long.
The plan was to have no plans.
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A driver from The Imperial hotel greeted us at arrivals. We chose our hotel for a somewhat unusual reason: to indulge my octogenarian father-in-law. He traveled to India on business in the 90s and as soon as we told him we’d be in Delhi, he went on (and sometimes on) about this, “charming hotel with a great craft store down the street.”
Like I said, no research.
Paralyzed with exhaustion, I spent the drive to the hotel in zombie-mode. As I watched Delhi’s unique brand of technicoloured-chaotic-magic unfold, my vacant stare couldn’t help but be roused. I knew deep down that our plan to do nothing was pretty much the worst idea ever. So my husband and I decided that in the morning, we’d check out the craft store we’d heard way too much about.
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We got our act together shortly before noon. At the end of the hotel’s peaceful, palm-lined driveway, we were greeted by a mob of deeply unmerry men.
“There’s a protest. You can’t go that way” explained a young man.
“Ok. Thanks” I replied, fully prepared to turn around and go eat biryani in bed. But he chimed in…
“Where were you hoping to go?”
“The craft store.”
“The Central Cottage Industries Emporium?”
“Sure?”
“I’m Arjun. I’ll take you to a similar store.”
“Thanks—”.
This is when I would normally add, “but no thanks” and come up with a lame excuse to get out of following some random guy in an unfamiliar country. But for some reason, I stopped myself.
“It’s next to my bus stop, a few blocks away…Follow me.”
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Within minutes of entering the substitute craft store we found ourselves in the clutches of a carpet dealer. A natural born hustler, he instinctively sensed our disinclination for haggling and was sure he could rinse us. And rinse us he did. We handed way too much money over to the smooth-talking stranger who promised to ship us our allegedly Kashmiri carpet “sometime soon”. Although somewhat sceptical we'd ever see the rug again, we wandered back to the main street in the kind of good spirits only retail therapy coupled with delusional jet lag can bring.
“Did you like the store?” Arjun shouted as he emerged from a horde of commuters
“What are you still doing here!?”
“My bus is late. Where are you going now?”
“We have no plans.”
Arjun peered down the road to a queue of tuk tuk drivers and summoned the first in line. He and the driver chatted for a few minutes before we were instructed to “get in”. Again, the control freak in me wanted to back out of this objectively questionable situation—a guy I met 30 minutes ago directing me to get into a tuk tuk with a guy I met 30 seconds ago—but my intuition was like, “honestly though, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“You will have dosas. This is Mr. Singh. He will take you.”
Without another word, our impromptu travel agent vanished into the crowd of commuters.
From the driver’s seat, Mr. Singh turned to acknowledge us. With a warm, non-verbal welcome that clearly communicated “my English is garbage”, he turned the key in the ignition and we lurched forward.
Mr. Singh!
After getting stuck in multiple livestock/vehicle traffic jams, we eventually pulled over and Mr. Singh led us into a never-to-be-found-again dosa shop. Without asking what we wanted (see garbage English note above), he placed our order at the take-out counter and beelined it back to his tuk tuk. We tried to pay our chauffeur for his over-the-top efforts, but were waved off. Mr. Singh left without a rupee. We ate our world class dosas stuffed with perfectly seasoned potato masala in silence, exchanging a few “wtf just happened?” looks as we chewed.
Slurping the dregs of our lassis, we left the restaurant resigned to revert back to our original plan: gorge on room service. But before we could even begin to figure out where we were or how to get back to The Imperial, Mr. Singh was awkwardly shepherding us back into his tuk tuk.
“Pashmina.” he asserted.
“Pashmina?” I inquired.
“Pashmina.” he confirmed.
Half an hour later, Mr. Singh turned down an unmarked alley somewhere in old Delhi’s underbelly. Of course, a dead end. Intrusive thoughts like, “huh, so this is how I die.” popped into my mind as we were ushered into a quasi-dilapidated building. Upon entry, my fears subsided. I was handed over to a kind-eyed hoarder in her sixties, happily suffocating under a burial mound of shawls. In silence, she draped pashmina after pashmina around my shoulders until she decided on the right one: a floral pattern in neutral tones. Did I like it? Not really. Did I buy it? Obviously.
There was no discussion as we walked back to the tuk tuk. Mr. Singh had fully adopted his role as our de facto tour guide and we had fully surrendered to whatever the hell was going on.
Mr. Singh’s insistence on me having a shawl became clear as we pulled into Gurudwara Shri Bangla Sahib—his local place of worship. After sorting out the entrance formalities, which included, but were not limited to: sourcing a head covering for my husband (I was glad to have my own), washing our feet, making a donation, and reading some religious pamphlets, we finally entered the massive complex.
Mr. Singh was in his element—a big man on Sikh campus. After shaking hands, kissing babies, etc. he took us to the Langur hall (a communal area where anyone, regardless of religion, caste or economic status, can eat a free, volunteer-made meal).
Correctly assuming I hadn’t racked up nearly enough hours of community service in my lifetime, Mr. Singh put me to work in the kitchen. With a level of awkwardness rarely seen outside 8th grade dances, I joined a handful of chatty sari-clad women making chapati. I gave who I assumed was the ringleader a “heyyyyyyy, clearly this wasn’t my idea and I have no idea wtf i’m doing” smile. She smiled back kindly before launching into a reprimand-filled lesson on how to roll chapati. Numerous hand-slaps, eye rolls, and sighs of disappointment later, I finally got the hang of it…ish. Despite my ineptitude, this impromptu-Indian-bread-making experience felt special, in part because I would never, not in any lifetime, have stumbled upon it on my own.
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After swinging by Raj Ghat park and the Red Fort, Mr. Singh decided our tour was coming to a close. Without instruction, he pulled up in front of The Imperial. Did Arjun mention he found us there? Did he overhear us talking about it? I’ll never know how he figured it out, but after the day’s heavy dose of serendipity, none of this came as a surprise. We took a few photos together, paid him handsomely and, with his now forever-ingrained-in-my-memory smile, he drove off.
Walking back down the hotel’s driveway I thought about how incredible our day was because I did something my mother (also a control freak) told me never to do: I followed a stranger. Our time in Delhi would have been 100% meh had I done what I normally do: say no. So I made a pact with myself—I wasn’t about to start getting into unmarked white vans with weirdos handing out candy…but maybe tuk tuks with strangers offering dosas was ok. Instead of knee-jerk-nos, I resigned to put a lil space and time in between invites and and rsvps. Weigh the proverbial pros and cons before shutting new experiences down. Saying “no” is rarely a bad idea, but it’s almost always a boring one. When you say yes, you let the universe do its thing: blow up your (non-existent) plans in the best possible way.
Ps: the carpet was waiting for us when we got home.
