Connaught Place and New Delhi

Delhi is a weird city. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way, but it is really strange. On the one hand you have the really old city that is Old Delhi. I've not yet in my life seen a more crowded place than the area around Jama Masjid (India's largest mosque). It does well to be compared with a beehive. There are children there who can do nothing less than break your heart. They are beggars, persistent beggars and they can be no more than 6 years old. They sit around the steps of the mosque, a clever move if you ask me since Muslims are required to give alms to the poor (one of the 5 pillars of Islam). Moreoever, Old Delhi is filthy, really filthy, the kind of filth you can't imagine unless you see it. But even with all that, Old Delhi is alive. It's buzzing from 4 AM and buzzes until long after midnight. I think it's a 21 or 22 hour city. There are shops selling any manner of things you can imagine, fast talkers, food sellers (delicious food!), rickshaws (actual rickshaws, not autorickshaws), drug dealers, pickpockets, fixers, you name it, it's probably in Old Delhi.

Contrast that with NEW Delhi. New Delhi, is clean, relatively speaking. It was a planned city, and designed by a French architect. There are large sweeping motorways, broad sidewalks, organized neighborhoods, beautiful parks, museums, and fabulous structures. The most striking example of this runs right through an area of town called Connaught Place. There is an enormous structure which to the untrained eye looks identical to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, Parliament, the President's Palace, and the National Stadium. The most surprising thing however, may be the fact that these four structures are in a straight line. Being the mathematician I am, I can't help but wonder exactly how straight that line is... Perhaps it just follows a geodesic on the surface of the Earth, or maybe it's a straight line within the universe. Either way, when you're there, it really looks impressive. Take a look for yourself:








It is worth noting that this last structure was made for the English Queen. It is next to the Arc de Triomphe (de Delhi) and when standing at Parliament looking toward the Arc de Triomphe de Delhi you can see this structure through the arc. The pictures of the other structures are missing for a couple reasons. Yvonne and I were walking that night with my friend, his brother, and his cousin. During our stroll all the people were moved out of the street (perhaps we shouldn't all be in the street anyway) and were kept there for some time by the police. Soon, a bus full of athletes rolled by. The reason for this was that the World Cup of hockey (field hockey) was taking place in Delhi while we were there. There was no way we could get to the national stadium that night. In addition, after dark, people are not allowed to go up to Parliament or the President's Palace.

Near the Arc de Triomphe de Delhi is a large mall, very similar to the national mall in Washington, D.C. So New Delhi is something like Washington, DC + Paris + London. Old Delhi is like no other city I know (but that's simply because I haven't traveled enough to make an accurate comparison).