A Modern Museum, An Indian Identity, A British Passtime

A Pretty Winged Visitor at Breakfast

A slightly later start. We left the hotel and wandered back through Connaught place, the south, via, of all things, a street called Copernicus on the way to the Modern Art Museum. We are waylayed by a young Muslim man who is perhaps the tenth, though most articulate, Indian to express his approval for Barak and disdain for Bush, the “man who hates muslims and fucked Iraq”. The museum lies on one side of the immense roundabout that circles India Gate, Delhi’s answer to the Arc de Triomphe, which is situated at one end of Delhi’s answer to the Washington Mall. The Houses of Parliament stand in lieu of Lincoln's memorial, their bricks blending softly into the city's khaki fog.

In this immense circle, on this, a Sunday afternoon, hundreds of Delhiites play cricket. In one quarter are more serious athletes, in full gear, white clothes, with wide brimmed hats. Sitting on large tarps beneath the shade in skirting trees are fans who keep track of the score in thick legers. The adjoining quarter of the circle hosts local boys who set up makeshift wickets and play with red tennis balls. The rest of the vast roundabout is filled with families enjoying a sunny Sunday.

Cricketers in the Park

The museum is delightful. An explanation in Hindi of our status as students drops the price to 10Rs...roughly twenty cents. The central atrium explains the history of India’s post-colonial reclamation and modernization of its artistic heritage, free from “influence of and adherence to the Western paradigm”. Apparently borrowing from Japanese art is fully embraced. The complex is quite large, and as is the case with much of modern Delhi, the site is still under construction and seems to be rather inexplicably in all directions. Paintings, sculptures, mixed-media works -- created by individual artists and urban and rural collectives -- fill the four-storey main hall. Photorealistic, billboard-sized portraits of old Bollywood stars, modern takes on traditional art forms, and geometric and abstract works are arranged in collections that spiral up through the museum. Catching the rays of the dying sun, we sit beneath a tree in the courtyard and watch local labor, wild dogs, and Delhi’s educated classes, dressed both in modern and traditional garb, pass through the compound.

On the way back, we again pass through the circle filled with cricketers. We are again asked to join a game, playing catch and taking a couple of turns at bat before the interest of that particular mob shifts and, either wary of their association with foreigners or due our sudden expiration as a source of entertainment, we are asked to continue on our way.

Moonrise over Delhi

Walking back down Copernicus Marg (avenue), I am surprised to see a vintage Rolls roll by. Then a 50s Dodge, and a couple of extravagantly finned Plymouths and Pontiacs. Many only make it a few hundred yards before breaking down following their excited exit from a britisher-era club. As we approach the gate from which they exit, we see traffic stop in both directions to take in the impromptu parade.

This evening we eat in a local restaurant, dining on ghee-saturated dishes ladled from vats which simmer ceaselessly in the restaurant's front window. Only a few hundred feet from a TGI Fridays, Pizza Hut and McDonalds, in this wealthiest part of the city, penniless families with five or six children huddle around scrap-fed evening fires amidst the rubble of urban demolition and reconstruction.