Within ten minutes of arriving at the airport in Delhi early on the morning of January 3rd I had already had one of the most impactful and powerful experiences of the entire trip. After disembarking from the plane we were about to get in line to go through immigration. A few of us decided to use the restroom before waiting in line. I went into the restroom: nothing seemed out of the ordinary until I went to wash my hands. There was a short man standing by the paper towel dispenser, glancing around every once and a while but standing pretty still overall. I thought it was a bit weird or different but was going to just ignore it and go about things as normally as I could with a guy watching me wash my hands.
When I had finished washing my hands I went to get a paper towel from the dispenser. However, as I reached for them the man standing there shook his head and said "No!" to me. There I stood, hands frozen inches from the paper towels and not entirely sure what was going on. After a few awkward seconds the man grabbed several paper towels himself and placed them into my hands. I dried my hands and walked out of the restroom more than a little confused.
It wasn't until I was outside that I realized who exactly that man was: a Dalit. However, at the time I didn't know that term. The only term I knew for someone in his position was something that might be more familiar to you: Untouchable. This man was a man that the rest of Indian society deemed worthy of nothing more than a life of handing people tissues to dry their hands. This is a job so low that other Hindus and Indians won't even do it for themselves. Instead, they have a member of the lowliest caste do it for them.
It was a sobering realization, to say the least. We made it through customs and onto the bus that took us to JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and, ultimately, the rest of the trip, but that first experience has definitely stuck with me. The caste system is technically unconstitutional, but in practice it's alive and well in India.
The rest of the day was spent touring Delhi: we went to the Red Fort, a Jain Temple, walked through the alleys in Old Delhi, and visited the Jama Masjid (the largest Mosque in India!). I'll let the pictures take over from here, with just a bit of caption/commentary from me where I feel the need to add a bit :).
A view of the Jain temple across the street from the Red Fort.
The entrance to the Red Fort. Note the bunker complete with a soldier manning a machine gun.
Some of our group walking around in the interior of the red fort. As you can tell, it was SUPER foggy the whole time that we were in Delhi.
This door and the steps leading up to it caught my eye.
This guard was packing some serious heat. I made sure to take the photo when he was looking the other way.
Our first stop for food in India and I got paneer curry. "Paneer" is hindi for cheese, so paneer curry is curry with cubes of cheese in it. This particular dish was about as tasty as cheese cube soup sounds-i.e. not very good. HOWEVER, it was mostly because it was fast-food-y and not a good sampling of it. By the end of the trip, I was ordering paneer dishes left and right because they're delicious.
The gate to the Jama Masjid dominates your view as you approach the mosque. The building itself is built on the highest point in Delhi, so you have to make a pretty serious climb just to get up the steps leading up to it!
The view of the street and market from near the bottom of the stairs leading to the gate.
The main event. Truly an impressive building.
Zack, Grayson and I climbed one of the minarets and this was the view. It was surreal to be gazing out across the city like this-it was DEFINITELY the perfect place to go on the first day of the trip!
View of the courtyard below. In this picture you can see the metal grate that they had encircling the platform thing we were on so you couldn't fall. It was still pretty crazy up there though-there were probably fifteen or twenty people crammed up there in a space that was legitimately not even as big as a dorm room. The sardines in a can analogy is about as close as I can get to describing it.
So that was the highlights of the first day in Delhi. We went back to JNU and spent the evening settling into what would be our homes for the next few days and got ready for more sights, more sounds, and more India the next day.
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