Some Bread and Fishes: Street Kids, Thumb Wars and Chai

Last year, I went to India! This is part 2 of the [mostly unabridged] account I wrote while I was over there, so if you're interested to read from the beginning you could read the previous post (although it's mainly about Singapore on the way to India!). Looking at how much I have written about each day... this may involve quite a few posts! But I needed to type it up anyway really, so if I lost the hard copy I would still have it somewhere. And if anyone enjoys reading it, well, that's a plus! Anyway, the first installment only included about two lines concerning India... so here is day three, which is when I actually reached India :)

Day 3 - Monday 26th September [2016], Delhi/Agra

There is so much I could write, but I'll start with recounting this morning. I didn't sleep very much, and woke up several times. Then I found an old tim-tam in my bag and ate it (not the best idea I've ever had). I felt very sick. I leaned over the sink for a while, then lay down, feeling annoyed I'd managed to get sick even before eating any Indian food. [As it turns out, the reason I was feeling sick was because I didn't realise you shouldn't take doxycycline, ie. malaria tablets, on an empty stomach. But anyway, continuing with the story!] So I prayed. A few minutes later I sat up, feeling more or less fine. God is good! I am looking forward eagerly to the rest of today!

We had breakfast on the roof of the hotel [which had turned out to be a dingy backpackers place in Paharganj, but hey, I liked it... Dad didn't though! Haha the story is that it was my job to book everything, including hotels, and... this was the one time I didn't do so well in spotting a good place]. We sat at a table with three Brazilian ladies who were from an island near Argentina. Another tour group filled the rest of the chairs, and they were from a school near Lismore! Breakfast consisted of puris and bhaji, with a little muffin on the side. The air on the rooftop was warm and sluggish, although we were shaded by a roof and shadecloth, and fans spun slowly above us. It was quiet up there, although punctuated by the occasional car honk, and you could see the rooftops of the neighbouring buildings through the shadecloth. Next up is the walk. [A guided walk through the streets of Paharganj by Salaam Baalak Trust, a charity rescuing kids off the street. Paharganj is a district of Delhi. It is the 'backpacker district' but it is also sadly a drug area, glue mostly, and on the other side of the railway is the red light district where most girls living on the street end up. Our guides were ex-street kids themselves. The walks aim to raise money and awareness of the situation of street kids in Delhi. As I found out later, some middle-class Delhi-ites don't like the fact that the charity presents a negative image of Delhi to all the tourists...]

Right, so the walk! So much more happened than I could capture in words. We walked through the galis [narrow lanes], avoiding dogs and puddles and rubbish while dodging rickshaws and cars; the guide Devraj along with another guide who was learning, Rahul, told us about what life is like for kids on the street in Delhi and how they came to be there. They also told us their personal stories of how Salaam Baalak had helped them [I hope it's okay to share their stories here!]; Rahul (16) is from Bihar, but his mother had died when he was a baby so he was an only child. His father was alcoholic and beat and tortured him, so he ran away. Devraj (17) is from near Kathmandu in Nepal. His mother died when he was 14, and his father (who was a farm labourer and was on drugs) made him and his siblings go to live with his elder sister and her husband. [They both eventually ended up on the street in Delhi, but have found a safe place in Salaam Baalak Trust. They now lead these guided tours, and help kids who were like themselves.]

Walking through the streets of Paharganj

We visited a 'contact point' [where Salaam Baalak keeps an eye out for kids who seem lost and helps them either find their family or provides them a place to stay] for the kids at the railway station, and then we walked to one of the boys' centres. We met a few young grinning boys, all around 7 or 8 years old, and played thumb wars [probably taught to them by foreign volunteers, who often help out there for a few weeks at a time], and talked about cricket and learned some of their names. I talked to them in Hindi [I had been learning it from books and movies and such since I was about 12 and could hold a very basic conversation]; the only name I can really remember was Pappu, an 8 year old who beat me at thumb wars every time.
Then we walked back to the head office of Salaam Baalak Trust and paid our donation and bought some t-shirts [another fundraising venture of the charity]. I really loved being able to meet the people and hear their stories, and also walk around the streets with someone to lead us. I saw squirrels for the first time, and a monkey, and lots of dogs and rats and flies and ants. Some streets smelled like incense, others like a farm, and others like a rubbish tip - and then you would look down, and discover that it actually was a rubbish tip.

I absolutely love it here; I never want to leave. I love all the people, all those precious souls all around me. I love the smell, I love the people grinning at you calling out 'Ma'am! You want to buy?', I love the Hindi being spoken all around me. I love the kids, and the old ladies huddled over walking sticks in saris, and the rickshaw drivers hovering beside you trying to convince you to take a ride while trying not to run over your feet. I love our tiny, dirty room. But most of all, I love my Jesus, my precious saviour who has brought me home to the land my heart adores. All my fears are diminished; it is difficult to think of a time I have been happier and more at home except for the day I was saved. God is good!

Travelling to Agra...
We made it on time to our train to Agra. It had taken us a while to figure out where to go and what platform to find, but eventually we got to the right spot and found our seats. We had taken an auto-rickshaw to get to the station, which after we kept walking the driver changed the fare from 60 rupees to 40 [still ripping us off a little, but hey, a guy's gotta make a living, right?]. We didn't really fit in with our luggage so my knees were hanging out the side and were nearly run into a few times. On the train I shared my bench seat by the window with a man who lived near Agra, but was a fly-in-fly-out worker in an oil company in Assam [one of the states on the other side of Bangladesh]. The train moved slowly out of the station, our compartment echoing with the merry laughs of some men nearby us who had apparently just told a very hilarious joke. We passed through station, with little boys walking alongside the tracks and older men [at the stations] going along with black grease covering their gloves. We passed crumbling slums and tents and washing lines strung up under bridges, barefoot children skipping after their mother and women in saris squatting in doorways. Mounds of rubbish banked the river, surrounding it on all sides, and as we go by on the train, rubbish is littered across the tracks.

The train station before the train departed

Looking out the train window at the river

A little further along in our journey some people came through selling things: Pani! Thanda pani, pani! Bisket! Cake, bisket, chips...! Garam garam chai, chai, garam chai! [I'll never forget the chaiwallahs... always with their deadpan voices, saying chai, chai... garam chai...]
We buy a little paper cup of chai for 10 rupees each [about 20 cents]. Well, I say chai, but it is probably closer to being liquefied sugar... it is hot and delicious, and goes well with the biscuits we bought from a street vendor back in Paharganj.

The train is quiet and relaxing, a nice break from the chaos of the street. The only other quiet place was really the restaurant where we had lunch, a place called Tadka. A random man had helped us find the restaurant, being very helpful, which he then immediately followed up with 'you want henna tattoo? Only 300 rupees...'
For lunch, I had tadka dal with chapati, and Dad had aloo gobhi and garlic naan. There was more than we could eat, so we got it as takeaway and have taken it with us to eat on the train later [we never did eat it. It was a few hours old by the time we were hungry again, and Dad decided not to risk it]. We'll be in Agra soon, and I'm interested to see how it compares to Delhi.

In Agra...
Agra is smaller than Delhi [I think]. We arrived at just before sunset. A man from our carriage kindly helped us to find the exit of the station and our driver to the Coral Tree Homestay [I had also booked most of the taxis in advance]. This place was a sort of small, compound-like building with lots of artsy decorations and was considerably fancier than the Smyle Inn back in Paharganj. We had a home cooked dinner [and tried Petha, the local sweet made from a unique type of white pumpkin that only grows around Agra and nowhere else in the world]. We had the dinner with two German tourists and a mother and daughter from New Zealand, and then went to bed.