Incredible India: Still a riddle wrapped up in an enigma

by Yeoh Siew Hoon

It’s 4am and I am sitting in the Air India lounge at Indira Ghandi International Airport in New Delhi as I write this.

Every business traveller who’s been to India has undergone this experience.

You have had to wake up at 2am to get ready for a 6am departure because everyone tells you how horrendous the queues will be at the airport and how long it will take you just to get through immigration and customs, so you’d better get there by 4am or else …

And no matter how seasoned a traveller you are, you don’t wish to take any chances because the last thing you want is to miss your flight and stay another night in a city where hotel rates are as stratospheric as the dust that’s floating in the atmosphere.

So you leave your hotel at 3am like the dutiful traveler you are, eager to get home to your wife, husband, children, dog – whoever is waiting for you.

The Shangri-La Hotel has very thoughtfully prepared breakfast-on-the-go – it’s a new service thought up by the general manager Andrew Steele because he knows what it’s like to get up at some ungodly hour to catch a flight and you are dying for that cup of coffee as soon as your body has adjusted to the shock.

He’s had a customized breakfast “tray” built into the back seat of the BMW – it holds a coffee, tea and milk flask – and there’s a bag of pastries all packed for your journey to the airport, just in case you feel like a bite.

As you sip your coffee and sink into the plush leather seat, you thank men like Steele for their ingenuity in making life on the road as easy as possible for road warriors like you.

You think back to the night before when you were drinking some of the best wines in the world with the elite of New Delhi’s expatriates, who were regaling and, more often than not, horrifying you with stories of life in India’s capital city.
(Incidentally, is there something inbuilt in the global expat culture that the more horrifying the stories you are able to tell, the more integrated you think you are into local life?)

Anyway, you thank Steele again for hosting the party which was to introduce his new Wine Bar at 19, Oriental Avenue. He’s brought in this new fancy bar set-up that allows him to serve up to 30 types of wine by the glass – it’s like wine on tap.

Steele is a self-professed “winoholic” and wants to introduce the wine culture into New Delhi, which is more into malt than grapes at this time.

Again you thank men like Steele for their passion and ideas for making travel as civilised as possible. He runs a hotel that may not quite match up to the other Shangri-Las you’ve stayed in, in terms of the physical facilities, but my gosh, does it more than make up for that in the service and warmth of the staff.

You recall the gentleness of the girl who escorted you to your room and the grace of her saree. You think of the beautiful face of the girl from Sikkim who served you breakfast – you wish you could have painted her portrait.

You appreciate the efficiency of the staff at the Horizon Club when you needed something printed urgently and you remember the warmth of all the staff, and you smile at the almost impish grin of the boy who carried your shopping bags to your room because he knows how guilty you feel for having bought so many things you probably do not need.

As you drive through the city, you see a different place to the one that you’ve been in the past three days – it’s eerily quiet unlike the day before when the city was bursting with life, colour and chaos the way India does when she’s fully awake.

Children are sleeping on the streets, the same children who came up to your car yesterday in the middle of traffic, trying to sell you something or begging for money or food.

Just as you are blown away by the economic growth of New Delhi and you see the new wealth of a country that economists say will be the third largest economy in the world by 2040, you are shocked and saddened by the grinding and vicious poverty you see the minute you step outside your hotel.

As seasoned as you are and as hardened as you are, because you’ve travelled through the poorest places – from Laos to Cambodia to Myanmar to the slums of South Africa to the outer villages of Tibet – your heart cannot help but be stirred by the plight of India’s poor and her untouchables.

The contrast between the very, very poor and the very, very rich is almost too stark for you to comprehend but you learn to accept these extremes as part of India and you have also learnt that empathy should not make you sad or depressed, rather compassionate and aware.

Everyone tells you not to give money to the poor “because you can’t give to everyone”. Everyone tells you not to accede to requests to have your shoes cleaned by street kids “because what they earn is collected by a Fagin and they get very little at the end of the day”.

So you learn to shut one eye to enjoy the two worlds that is Delhi – New Delhi, the city designed by Lord Luton along the lines of London and Paris, with its wide boulevards and grand buildings, and the old Delhi with its narrow streets and explosion of sights, sounds and smells.

And you shop – tis the season for giving and there is no better place to buy Christmas gifts for friends and family than in India. Exotic silks, colourful fabrics, handmade crafts, silk bedspreads, cushion covers in every fabric, shade and shape, jewelery …

You go to the emporiums close to the Shangri-La and you spend nearly an hour in “Kashmir”. You never make it to “Rajasthan”.

You head to Fab India at Greater Karnestha 1, N Block. You stop off at Dilihat Market for local crafts. You end up at the fancy shopping arcade, with its designer stores, across the Ashoka Hotel for a more upmarket experience.

When you arrive at the airport, replete with coffee and croissant, you are happy – you’ve got to the airport on time and you’re under your baggage allowance of 30kg despite your shopping.
Until the check-in staff, shaking his head, tells you, “Very sorry, your flight has been delayed to 8.15.”

And so you’ve got four hours to kill before your flight at an airport that may be promising it will be world class soon but is nowhere near any class you have experienced in all your travels.

The Air India lounge is dark and gloomy, the toilet stinks – you wish you were back at Shangri-La Hotel – but you are so tired you manage to catch some sleep anyway.

As you stand in the security queue which is at least 100 people-deep, you stop the reminiscing because, frankly, at this stage of the travelling game, all you want to do is get home.

But nothing is ever as easy as it sounds in India. It is 8.30am, 15 minutes after the delayed scheduled departure, and the boarding gate for my flight has not even been assigned. I go to someone in uniform and ask about the flight.

Shaking his head, he says, “Flight has been delayed. We will tell you when it’s ready.”

Ah, incredible India.

Catch more of Yeoh Siew Hoon every week at The Transit Cafe

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