It is said that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun. I must either be a mad dog or an Englishman as I was out in the noonday sun in Delhi. It was a lazy morning and I slept in later than I intended; I couldn’t seem to roust myself from sleep. After a leisurely cup of coffee and some email work, my friend, Raja, sent his driver Emmanuel for me to take me out sightseeing.
Emmanuel doesn’t have much English. An Indian native, he is a 7th Day Adventist. He did understand Qutub Minar and we drove there through the noonday traffic. Once I had purchased my ticket, I was approached by a guide who would take me through the site; the cost was 300 Rupees, about $5. I thought: why not.? His name was, I think, Parbal.
Qutub Minar is the site of Delhi’s oldest mosque. Qutub Minar is the minaret built to call the faithful to prayer. It is a magnificent edifice and a World Heritage Site. Built of red sandstone and marble, it towers to 73 meters. Its construction started in the late 12th century and was finished in the mid 14th century. The entire complex was amazing and Parbal took me through it, step by step for about 90 minutes.
There is an iron pillar in the midst of the complex. It predates the Qutub Minar and it was said that if you held your arms around it backwards, your wish would be granted. It is now fenced off. I was annoyed. I have a couple of wishes I’d like granted.
From there, I went to Humayun’s Tomb. Humayun was a 16th Century Mughal Emperor who inherited a kingdom, lost it and then got it back with help from the Persians. While not a good military strategist, he was a very good man, which earned him the title of “Perfect Man” among the Mughals.
He had several rascally brothers who kept betraying him and he kept forgiving them, several times over in the course of his lifetime. By the end of his life, he had recovered his empire and expanded it. His son was Akbar the Great.
It was the first garden tomb in India, surrounded as it is by acres of gardens, threaded through with narrow water channels and dotted here and there with fountains. It was designated a World Heritage Site in 1993 and has since then undergone much restoration. It was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal.
I visited it twenty years ago and attest that it is definitely in better shape than it was then.
As Emmanuel drove me through the streets of Delhi, I realized another change in the city. There are fewer homeless crowding the boulevards. Twenty years ago when you left the manicured gardens of the Oberoi Hotel, you were immediately thrust onto a boulevard crowded with rough tents and hundreds of people living there. Not so today.
Stopping for a bite to eat in a little brasserie, I watched a bit of the big Cricket match, not that I could make much sense of it. Everyone else was enraptured by the proceedings, not caring about anything else.
But while I was sleeping and touring, the world kept ticking on.
The Sunni Saudis are bombing the Shia rebels in Yemen and have amassed 150,000 troops to be used if they need them. The paper left at my door here at the India International Center, had a front-page report about the Yemeni President fleeing his home.
In a confusing and disturbing report, it appears one pilot was locked out of the cockpit at the time of the Germanwings crash in the Alps. The voice recorder reveals the pilot knocking on the door lightly and then pounding on it and then trying to break it down.
The military is going to charge Bowe Bergdahl with desertion, bringing, once again, into question the prisoner exchange that secured his release.
The US has now been asked by Iraq to send airstrikes in support of the effort to liberate Tikrit, where the offensive has stalled. It started doing so while I was asleep last night.
In Mosul, continuing their winning ways, IS stoned to death a couple in their 20’s for adultery and beheaded three young men because they were nephews of an opponent. Residents of Mosul are urging the Iraqi government to rescue them.
The sun is beginning to set outside the window of my room. A soft light is signaling the beginning of the end of the day. In awhile, my friend Raja will come and we will go off to dinner.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 03 27 15 The road to Roorkee….
March 27, 2015It is a little after 8 at night in Roorkee, where I am to give my speech on Sunday. I arrived around 4:30 after a 4-hour road trip from Delhi. An Indian road trip is not for the faint of heart. A driver picked me up at the India International Center. Also riding with me was a young man, Dhurv Malik, who, too, was on his way to Roorkee. He manages a musical group that is making an appearance tonight.
I am sure Dhurv found my occasional intakes of breath amusing as we wound our way from Delhi to Roorkee. We seemed to spend much of the time on the wrong side of the road, facing oncoming traffic as the young man driving us worked his way around vehicles going too slowly for his taste.
The roads were not exactly smooth; there were about 50 kilometers when I thought we were going over speed bumps the whole way. It was a bit like being on the inside of a mixer.
For lunch, around 2:30, Dhurv suggested either some food from a roadside cart or McDonalds. I chose McDonalds, not wanting to test my stomach on an Indian roadside cart.
It was nicer than most McDonalds I have been to recently in the States. Very clean and the fries tasted just like home. Remarkable.
Once outside of Delhi, as soon as we entered the state of Uttar Pradesh, I knew I was back in India. Not that I didn’t know it in Delhi but here there were the roadside shantytowns of people. The dust covered the trees, making them look grimy in the afternoon sun.
Advertisements looked homemade and there were more beggars.
Surrendering myself to the universe and into the care of God, I closed my eyes, as I felt sleepy. I opened them once to see us squealing past a little boy in the middle of the highway, begging.
I said a silent prayer he would make it through the day and live to beg another day.
This was the India of pungent smells and rolls of dust scattering across the land, of people sitting on cheap plastic chairs, watching the world roll by, of men having their hair cut on the side of the road, of women in brilliant red saris, carrying babies, begging, the India that has yet to see modernization.
It was fascinating to watch it race by, my senses heightened by wondering if the young man at the wheel had the skill – and the luck – to get me safely where I was going. Dhurv was unconcerned as far as I could tell.
He made fascinating company. He works for a company in Delhi named Only Much Louder that is 51% owned by Indians and 49% owned by Hollywood types like Jerry Bruckheimer. About a month ago they were bringing Jerry Seinfeld to India for his first Asian show.
It was cancelled because the Indian government wanted approval of the script before the show. “It’s stand-up!” cried Seinfeld, and even if there were a script, he wouldn’t give it to them. He didn’t come.
Such are the tensions in the largest democracy in the world, wanting freedom but afraid of too much of it in a deeply conservative country.
I’ve just returned from a concert that closed the session for the first day of the Cognizance Conference. The first act was a Scandinavian blonde in a red dress playing a Lucite electric violin. She must be something of a celebrity in India because the house went wild for her.
Following was a dance group called “The Skeleton Dancers” and they were very interesting though a bit hard to describe, dancing in electric outfits that constantly changed colors though always looking a bit skeletal.
Since I have arrived, I seemed to have been paired with Ron, whose last name I haven’t quite caught yet. He is a Ph.D. in Ethno Mathematics. We are surrounded by a half dozen young students who see to it we are treated like rock stars. I mustn’t become too used to it.
I haven’t a clue what has been happening in the world. My phone makes calls and sends texts but it is not connected to the Internet and I haven’t perused what’s going on in the world.
There is one more appearance I seem to need to make and then I am off to bed. Tomorrow I will see what is happening in the world.
Tags:Cognizance, Delhi, Dhruv Malik, IIT Roorkee, India, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jerry Seinfeld, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, McDonald's, Roorkee, Skeleton Dancers
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