Delhi in Diwali

"Like brown and black dunes, the acres of slums rolled away from the roadside, and met the horizon with dirty heat-haze mirages. The miserable shelters were patched together from rags, scraps of plastic and paper, reed mats, and bamboo sticks...

"It seemed impossible that a modern airport, full of prosperous and purposeful travellers, was only kilometers away from those crushed and cindered dreams. My first impression was that some catastrophe had taken place, and that the slums were refugee camps for the shambling survivors...

"As the kilometers wound past, as the hundreds of people in those slums became thousands, and tens of thousands, my spirit writhed. I felt defiled by my own health and the money in my pockets. If you feel it at all, it's a lacerating guilt, that first confrontation with the wretched of the earth. I'd robbed banks, and dealt drugs, and I'd been beaten by prison wardens until my bones broke. I'd been stabbed, and I'd stabbed men in return. I'd escaped from a hard prison full of hard men, the hard way -- over the front wall. Still, that first encounter with the ragged misery of the slum, heartbreak all the way to the horizon, cut into my eyes. For a time, I ran onto the knives."

--Gregory David Roberts (describing his first impressions of Bombay, India in his amazing book, SHANTARAM).

Holy Cow: We're in India!

As we made our way into a very congested airport, our fellow travellers told us that most of India was celebrating the eve before "Diwali." We did not realize then that it was India's biggest festival; to celebrate Rama and Sita's homecoming in the Ramayana. So the usually chaotic infrastructure was crammed to unbelievable overcapacity with family members and shoppers returning home to exchange gifts and blow up huge firework displays everywhere. The guidebooks all prepare against the culture shock and overwhelming of the senses that is India; however, we simply were stuck in traffic or pin-balled around as we tried to get a hotel room; let alone our bearings.

Tierra in the Paharganj area of Delhi; strings of flowers adorn the storefronts

The rooftop cafe of our hotel offered great views of a constant barrage of fireworks overhead; some too close for comfort with blasts rocking the city all night. Did I mention that it was our wedding anniversary to boot?

"Hold Yer Fire!!!"