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There is a general sense that life in India has rather more of tumult, of congestion, of noise, of all things going in different directions at the same time.
There is a general sense in which Oxford Circus in the middle of a Saturday afternoon might be construed somewhat busy.
Connaught Place may be considered the Oxford Circus of India, and I was there in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, to buy a larger rucksack and some swimming trunks. Being authoritatively informed that swimming-trunks were available only in the underground portion of the market, and rucksacks in India practically unknown, I made my escape by autorickshaw, past the Jain Happy School and the street of itinerant motorbike-helmet sellers.
If I made the two, hopefully cancelling, naive mistakes of believing what the keepers of craft shops say about the amount of labour required for the pieces they sell, and of believing that the process from impoverished village of malachite-inlay-shapers to Agra Inlaid Stone Emporium inflates prices by only a factor two, a malachite inlay shaper makes 100 rupees a day. Coincidentally, this is the size of the smallest note you can get from an ATM, and thus the smallest convenient amount to pay an autorickshawdriver for a trip.
Other than this, I saw the Hamayun's Tomb complex, which is another amazing set of red-sandstone buildings, and the National Museum, which is as large as you expect and in which I stayed until closing time managing to view only the Harappan pieces, the jewellery section ('C20' is an unusually useless time to give for when a piece of jewellery was made), and the sculptures. And a cursory glimpse at the Moghul silk-paintings, made with a single-hair brush and with detail down as far as my myopic eyes can see. Tomorrow, I think, Mehrauli and the Red Fort.
There is a general sense in which Oxford Circus in the middle of a Saturday afternoon might be construed somewhat busy.
Connaught Place may be considered the Oxford Circus of India, and I was there in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, to buy a larger rucksack and some swimming trunks. Being authoritatively informed that swimming-trunks were available only in the underground portion of the market, and rucksacks in India practically unknown, I made my escape by autorickshaw, past the Jain Happy School and the street of itinerant motorbike-helmet sellers.
If I made the two, hopefully cancelling, naive mistakes of believing what the keepers of craft shops say about the amount of labour required for the pieces they sell, and of believing that the process from impoverished village of malachite-inlay-shapers to Agra Inlaid Stone Emporium inflates prices by only a factor two, a malachite inlay shaper makes 100 rupees a day. Coincidentally, this is the size of the smallest note you can get from an ATM, and thus the smallest convenient amount to pay an autorickshawdriver for a trip.
Other than this, I saw the Hamayun's Tomb complex, which is another amazing set of red-sandstone buildings, and the National Museum, which is as large as you expect and in which I stayed until closing time managing to view only the Harappan pieces, the jewellery section ('C20' is an unusually useless time to give for when a piece of jewellery was made), and the sculptures. And a cursory glimpse at the Moghul silk-paintings, made with a single-hair brush and with detail down as far as my myopic eyes can see. Tomorrow, I think, Mehrauli and the Red Fort.
