Getting off of flight Air India 121, Delhi to Frankfurt, was like entering into a quiet alien world. Germany may be the opposite of India. Days ago, I was at Karim’s in Old Delhi, right next to the Jama Masjid. The celebrants of Ramadan were streaming out of the Grand Old Mosque, onion domes ringed with lights massaged by the humid air, a great movement of white pajamas streaming out from beneath them, into the somber madness of the old city.
To make it into Karim’s, one dips into a small alley past the sweet shop, and emerges, born again, into the world of halal meats. A great roasting greets the guest, and a rogues gallery of tourists, speaking American, waving their cameras at the flesh on fire. Signs hanging from above proclaimed “We do NOT have branches (there), (there), and (the other place),” for obviously the malintent have leached upon the powerful name of Karim. Allah ackbar. Aye carumba.
The restaurant was packed, even by Indian standards. Families and single dudes kind of queued before the dining hall, forming a line in the way that video game controllers magically tangle their wires at the slightest provocation. I began a conversation with two young Indian men, whose accents too sounded American, but were not, in the manipulative hopes that I would be able to sit with them, as I feared a table of one would never appear in the fluorescent-lit feast. “What’s the best thing to get hear?” I asked them both, one tall and polo’ed, the other in a tee-shirt. “The red meat is very good,” the tall one said. “They’re known for mutton.” This knowledge confirmed that this was the place to make an exception to my Buddha-inspired vegetarianism. That dude taught that if you are a guest at a house, and an animal would be killed for you, to decline it, but if the animal was already killed, and you were to be included in its ingesting, then you may accept it. Seeing that a plethora of beasts were being slaughtered simultaneously in honor of Ramadan, and the butchers were Muslim, I trusted that this is the time and place.
While I was doing this rationalization, my company concluded that the restaurant was simply too full, and departed.
Taqiyah-capped waiters buzzed about of varying sizes, one clearly the general of the bunch, taller than the others, who tended to mill and mumble about. I snuck-forced my way through the families politely waiting, looking for a party to join. I spied a thin young man in a red wifebeater, wearing thick-framed spectacles. A black notebook laid beside him as he tore into his well-laid meal with each hand. Such a debauched pretension reminded me of myself, so I ninja’ed to his table and asked if I could join him.
“’Ello,” he chirped, expertly multitasking between his attack and greeting. His cheerfulness marked him as Australian, which I asked after, “Oh no,” he said, “British. I’m from London.” He had a glow to him. I told him I’d been meeting lots of brilliant Brits. “Yes, kind folks that take you at their tables.” Indeed.
I leered at his feast, bones and sauces collected on the table. Grabbing a hunk of naan with one hand while still chewing a mouthful of chicken or mutton, hard to tell, camouflaged by the dressing. My dinner-table companion had taken on a vulpine quality, even werewolfing in the full moon night, and, with his bashful-playful disposition, took on a certain Teen Wolf Abroad quality. My hunger was beginning to give me the shakes.
I attempted to gather the attention of one of the waiters buzzing around, but they were seemingly all pre-occupied. I longed for the simplicity of Korean dining, where a mere hand in the air and a well-voiced “Yogi-oh!” (OVER HERE! (PLEASE!)) was enough to send a server sprinting toward the table. But this was India, this was Ramadan; things were a bit messy.
My companion, who had yet to reveal his name, explained that he was at the end of a more than half a year trip around the world, through Southeast Asia and India, leaving for London in only two days; I was leaving for Frankfurt in three. We shared wonder at the mad beauty of India, the glory of its disorganization. Something very different than what I would find in Germany.
Geographer by training, bloke’s going back to run the Tube, maybe further encourage the use of those clever rental-bike programs about the city, the only sector of London Transit that’s actually making any money. It’s lovely when environmental and commercial concerns run parallel, we agreed, and perhaps that positivity was enough to attract a server.
I made sure to roder some sort of mutton, as well as a few dishes I didn’t recognize at all, plus accompanied by the requisite roti. By now I was famished, and watching a friend eat, tantalized. Ready.
And Allah does provide. Hunks of meat in thick sauces arrived at the table. My eyes went wide. It was like Christmas morning and Thanksgiving dinner together. “Aye, like you just finished Ramadan yourself,” the Londoner quipped. Indeed. I’d only had peanuts through the afternoon. An arc of bone reached out from a thick spinach sauce, inviting me to grab its handle. I raised the dripping flesh to my mouth, a deep gray-red revealing through the green, and bit in: I nearly fell out of my chair. A near goddamn orgasm. Fatty and full, lightly spiced and gently cooked, so tender I could lay my head on it. Thank the Lord.
And the feast went on. Bread, meat, sauce, repeat. Talking of travels. But there’s no comparison for the first hit. The laddie had been a vegetarian for eight years, and then got to Southeast Asia, and noticed that all the Thai streetfood was meatastic, and had no choice but to comply. And wonder why he didn’t eat it for so long. By now, full of traveler’s tales and roast flesh, we concluded that the time had come to go get our greasy fingers on some sweets to finish things off. I swung my legs out from under the table, waddled to the register, and forked over the most rupees I’d yet paid for a meal in the country. If one wishes to eat like a prince, one will pay like one as well.
Outside the air was hot and holy. The day’s fast was well-broken, and this century old Muslim neighborhood throbbed with celebrant energy. I looked to my right, entranced by the Jama Masjid. Not since Istanbul had I seen this sort of majesty. “I am surprising myself with how much I am attracted to Islam these days,” I said. “Their architecture is just great,” my bespectacled companion encouraged. We rotated to the confections beside us.
Indian sweets are unlike those of the West; they know no moderation. It is though they are made with only sugar, and perhaps some cream for shape. Some appeared to be éclairs, some were square cakes with spiraled pistachios, and the bottom was reserved for a line of yogurts. The young man behind the counter had the winking confidence of the humorously overqualified, and so I asked him what was his favorite.
“Oh, I don’t know!” he said, sweeping his hand behind, and across, the counter. “Probably the Bhappa Doi,” a steamed sweet rice. We each ordered one, and I opted for that mini-éclair that caught my eye, which was, of course, entirely soaked through with sugar water. I split it in half and offered it to my companion. We munched our yogurts and took in the street scene, ignoring the beggars surrounding us with aplomb. We were jubilant, drunk on a season in India. The wires crisscrossing the space above, the rows and rows of shops, and the endless throngs of people, out of the mosque, through the alleyway, sleeping on the streets. This neighborhood would be going until at least three in the morning, even on a weeknight, so powerful is Ramadan. A great collective energy, one that I noted with a hint of sadness, for I felt how soon I was to depart. For a beat we shared a silence, savoring the seconds.
“Ah, I don’t even know your name,” we each remembered. “Luke,” he said, extended a delightfully dirtied hand. I shook it with joy and thanked him for the company, and we agreed to meet in London. He pointed me in the direction of the subway, at we parted, as I turned left across the Mosque.
The subway called to me; I had to hurry to the Gurgaun, the instant-city suburbanizing Delhi, and enjoy one of my last nights with my host Varun. Thin men slept on cardboard on the medians. Rickshaws crowded the lane, painted orange by streetlight. I swung my bag in front of me and sauntered through the tumult. Sucked on a beedi cigarette by the ATM, awash with djinn magic.
As I walked down the street, a rickshaw driver turned around, and,, “20 rupees to the subway,” he said with a sad, knowing smile, “my request.” I told him I didn’t need the ride, thank you. Away from the mosque, the city became quieter, vulnerable. Dogs stirred and slept in doorways. Shops, so alive in the daytime, rested. A mixture of dust and rust in the air.
My metro waited at Chandi Chawk, one of the old center’s numerous markets. Delightful grime. I walked up the perch of the entrance, and the angle of the intersection revealed a low-hanging moon, conspiring yellow in the black above. I pointed at it, recognizing that she’s been up to her old tricks, and disappeared into the underground, my last taste of Old Delhi.
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