(This post picks up where the previous one left off.) After we’d walked through and around and past the beggars, my tour group arrived at the Lotus Temple, which is a Bahá’í House of Worship. It’s open to people of any and all faiths and is meant to be a place for praising God without denominational restrictions. While the outside of the Lotus Temple is a beautiful work of architecture, the inside is almost plain — cavernous and filled with wooden pews, but simple. I realize the irony of pushing past people in need in order to visit a place of spirituality, but at the time, I just sat down,…
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This is a post about beggars
Walking down the street from my hotel to the metro, I was treated to the scents of urine, dirt, and exhaust. Incense, spices, and street food frying in oil. My tour group and I were on our first outing together to visit the Lotus Temple in Delhi. We rode the metro there, and when we arrived at our stop (Kalkaji Mandir on the violet line), we paused outside the station beside an orange vendor and his cart. The fruits were green, but we could tell they were oranges because the vendor peeled them theatrically and their smell was unmistakable. We watched as the fruits released sweet mist into the air…
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India: First Impressions
It was midnight when I arrived in Delhi — an hour later than I was meant to — and my first thought was that airports look like airports all over the world. Of course, when I stepped outside and met up with my tour guide, Earl, he told me New Delhi’s airport was only a few years old and the previous one had looked more like a large bus station. My second thought was something along the lines of, “damn, it’s humid. Should it really be this hot at midnight?” The answer was no, it should not have been that hot in Delhi in October (especially not at midnight), but…
