The stadium was awash in sound and light - the blaring Bollywood music broken only by intermittent cracks from the Batsman in the center of the pitch, followed by cheers from the crowd. I was unhappily aware of the face on the screen in front of me: a face I neither knew nor cared to be engaged with. “Sir, this is my SEE-ster!” urged the man seated next to me, referring to the shy, backlit face of a young woman emanating from the palm of his hand. Her lips were moving and her hand was waving at me from the screen of the phone. I waved back and smiled, unable to hear what she was saying over the din of the stadium, and then shifted my focus back to the cricket match I was attending with my friend, Ajaz. Ajaz took no notice of the encounter progressing in the seats to his left. His attention was on this Legends League game he had taken me to, and he gave no attention to the fact that I was being introduced to a man’s entire family by video call. As the faces continued to change on the screen, the man to my left went on shouting at the family members in his palm while looking over at me for approval. 

It’s common in India to be gawked at by strangers and approached for a selfie. Those isolated incidents in passing are one thing, but if you’re at a public event such as a cricket match, you’re a sitting duck for selfies. Once my neighbor finally tired of displaying me to his family, the seat he vacated next to me was beckoning with opportunity. Men would come and sit down in it, perhaps say a few words, or nothing at all, extend their phones, look at me and gesture over to the device and fire off a selfie. Then they’d shyly smile, and depart so someone else could repeat the process. The match was in more ways than one a test of my patience, as we had waited an absurd two hours for this game to start. It had rained the night before, and there happened to be one small patch of grass that was still wet. Officials stood over the small patch racking their brains as to why it wasn’t dry and apparently debated solutions. And so for two hours, we observed the attempts of Flintstone-car-looking vehicles Ajaz referred to as “super soakers”, and men with leafblowers that attempted to dry the ground with pressure and hot air respectively; all while our ears were assaulted by a deluge of decibels from the loudspeakers as formerly retired players stretched and warmed up out on the field. I wouldn’t have been at the match if it weren’t for Ajaz’s invitation, and would likely not have enjoyed it as much if not for his patient explanations of the conventions and rules of the game. On my own, the match would have been borderline excruciating, and I don’t know if I would have even stayed until the start. But thanks to his presence, I was able to observe and enjoy the match through his eyes, and better understand the significance of this cultural phenomenon in India.

I had met Ajaz four years ago, when I visited India for the first time with my then-roommate, Nathan. Nathan’s close friend had moved to Delhi to start a tourism company for Westerners and ex-pats that employed only locals, and so we engaged him for a package tour. Ajaz was his lead guide, and our first friend in India as he had picked us up at the airport and personally delivered us to our accommodation in Mehrauli, an ancient village full of ruins and landmarks on the hilly outskirts of New Delhi. He would lead us on walking tours around the city, and even invited us to his home for an intimate family dinner in his father’s bedroom. We had kept in touch over the years, and soon after my return to India, I returned to his home for lunch with him and his father and uncle. I greeted the men with Salaam Alaikum, the Muslim greeting Ajaz had taught me years ago before we washed hands and enjoyed a dish of water buffalo and turnips served with milk tea, fresh bread, and salad. We talked about how he and his family had pivoted during the pandemic. With tourism virtually nonexistent, he and his employer shifted towards a language school, to teach Hindi to foreigners living (or stuck) in Delhi. With his father in construction, an industry that had grounded to a standstill, Ajaz and his sisters had become the primary providers for his family. But he accepted that burden in stride, providing for his family was an act of love. His uncle spoke no English, but listened intently, dressed in his skullcap and long, white kurta. Soon after he finished eating, he moved over to a divan in the corner and laid flat on his back while we continued talking. A few minutes later, he was snoring softly in a supine position, his pointy, white beard sticking straight up in the air and blowing in the draft of the box fans. 

After relocating to Mehrauli, I was able to convene more regularly with Ajaz, meeting for coffee, with Ajaz teaching me to speak basic Hindi or just walking the vast archaeological park together. We talked very candidly about our beliefs and worldviews, Ajaz firm in his determination to understand in particular my view on the existence of God. This was fitting here in the diverse village of Mehrauli, which contains mosques, churches, a synagogue, and sikh temple to name just a few local religious backgrounds. I snapped photos as we dodged obstacles in the narrow, lively streets underneath a dense web of power lines. I desired to stay there for some time to focus on getting my writing and photos from Ladakh published in other outlets, and loved the idea of getting my own place in this old village, and contacted a professor of fashion design who owns an Airbnb that Nathan and I had stayed in four years ago. The place is a small 5th-floor rooftop bungalow in the midst of a stunning terrace garden.  It was just like I had remembered, although I didn’t remember much about Darshan, other than an interchange years ago when Nathan and I arrived at the place and remarked about a painting of the moon landing, Darshan insisted to us (two Americans no less) ever so casually that the moon landing was faked, speaking as if it were common knowledge. And here I was years later, meeting Darshan again, finding a kindly man with a long white beard and a paper clip lodged in one ear lobe. He invited me down for a basic lunch after I had settled in, and started to explain at length the evidence behind the existence of extra-terrestrial civilizations present on Earth. I listened to the professor’s lecture as patiently as possible, and after heading upstairs to get cleaned up, I received a minor electrocution from my shower faucet. 

Walking through Mehrauli felt like walking through time, and through Ajaz, I learned of the best local food joints. Delhi as a whole has a vibrant food scene, with hundreds of upscale restaurants scattered throughout the sprawling city. While it can be fun to explore these places and rediscover one’s favorite foreign dishes, you often pay high prices for European or Asian fusion cuisine, and these trendy and overly pretentious places can get tiring after a while, especially when you account for travel time through the chaos of Delhi’s streets. But here in the maze of Mehrauli, Ajaz took me only to hole-in-the-wall spots serving authentic food for prices at about a dollar a serving. Riding doubled up on his scooter, Ajaz showed me the best places for butter chicken, chole bhature, biryani, and a great South Indian food stall; some of these places of the variety where you ate standing up, and did your best to remain blissfully ignorant of the nonexistent food preparation standards. I wouldn’t have noticed these stalls on my initial arrival, much less thought of entering one and sitting down at a grimy, plastic table, but I soon became comfortable here, as well as recognized and welcomed warmly by the stall owners. You feel much more like a local this way, standing elbow to elbow with the other patrons, chowing down, handing over your plate for refills, passing the chutney and other homemade condiments back and forth. After months of sustained travel (rarely cooking due to my lack of a consistent kitchen), this felt so much more natural than yet another meal seated at a lonely table, only interacting with a waiter or server instead of the cook/owner themselves. 

Hopping off the scooter outside my apartment with a belly full of chole bhature, and a few more Hindi phrases in my repertoire, I gave Ajaz a fistbump before he disappeared in a flash into the packed alleyways.

-Delhi, November 25, 2022

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Thanks for reading,

M.