Delhi arrival

I have arrived in Delhi and am now sitting in a pretty comfortable little room which is part of a concrete complex at the USI (United Service Industries; which is some sort of association setup for Service Personell, I think mainly the army and, ahem, visiting diplomats like myself). There was a guy doing the mindless job of sweeping dirt from one side of the path to the other, and a guard in a blue uniform “patrols” the beat outside my window.

I have seen as little of Delhi as is possible, having been met by Anupam, my new boss at GreenOil at the airport are driven to this complex. Even in that short drive, we have been stopped by 5 officials, 3 in the airport carpark checking that we had a valid ticket to get out. Not much else to report, the smell of diesel(?) hits you as soon as you walk out of the airport, lots of people walking along the highway and indeed across it (apparently you need to honk your horn to stop them from walking in front of you and killing themselves), and the normal near-misses when merging traffic that somehow people who drive like this all the time manage to become accustomed to.

As an aside, I’ve already seen a little bit of the money talking here, but to be honest it solved a problem that I was grateful for and would have been happy to pay for. We got here early in the morning of course, which meant that I wasn’t able to check-in yet. But Anupam then negotiated an early check-in all the same, by asking about the “protocol” for such things. The protocol is you apparently pay for another half a day. Not too shabby though- it got me a shower and an hour lie-down time.

Delhi has turned on the weather for me as well- today should be a mild 29 degrees.

Just went down and had some breakfast at the compound (as I’m now referring to it) restaurant: complete with bagpipes on the wall and drawings of famous Indian commanders in their colonial general’s outfits. Really felt like being in something out of colonial times, especially with the five wait staff employed to serve the two customers there (the capacity is perhaps for 100 people?). Everyone speaks Hindi amongst themselves, and I was even asked by a guy in combat fatigues if I knew where ‘Part D’ of the complex was when I walked back from the restaurant to my room. I get the feeling asking for directions to offices is going to become a regular occurrence. Oh, by the way, the restaurant wasn’t called a restaurant- It is signposted with the words “Retreat”.

I have now eaten at the Retreat twice, broken up by a visit to the local currently-under-construction mall where I had a passable Thali meal. I felt a bit shameful actually eating it in front of Dhananjay (recently-hired sales guy for GreenOil) seeing as he and most Muslims are currently in fasting mode, with the start of the Hindu New Year today. So they only get one meal a day apart from some fruit in the mornings.

I just wanted to mention the Retreat for its actually pretty good Vege Jalfraezi(?) and Indian-ness, staffed as it was tonight by at least 8 waiters for the 8 tables that were occupied there. When they weren’t occupied they stood together with their hands behind their backs looking like well-behaved school kids, watched as they were by the school/master, who was allowed to wear a tie instead of a bow-tie.