Wednesday, August 16 Krishna's Birthday, Post-Independence Day

Once I got off the AC train at New Delhi Station, a blast of fiery hot air hit me. Welcome back to hell. I awkwardly walked all the way over the bridge to the Metro station and was going through the security with three bags and a water bottle filled with Ganges water. Because it was the day after Independence Day, security was strict. Security wanted to ensure the water bottle wasn’t filled with anything dangerous, so they told me to take a sip of water to prove it wasn’t dangerous. I told them I couldn’t drink it or I’d get sick, so they wouldn’t let me on and I had to take a bicycle rickshaw through Old Delhi to the apartment. I had lunch at Fiesta. Ugh. And then I took the best shower of my life. After that I went to Connaught Place to renew validity on my cell phone. I forgot ID and had to go back and forth, but what made it bad was 1) it was 100 degrees outside, and 2) security for the Metro was so tight that I had to wait in a 10-minute line to get padded down. After exiting the Metro station at Civil Lines, I saw a man riding an elephant down the street, just lumbering along, no big deal. I headed over to Rajpath and as I expected, it had a carnival, fair type feeling because it was a holiday for Krishna’s birthday. In the large open mall, Delhiites sat and talked, munched on ice cream and sweets, played soccer games, flew kites, and paddled rented boats. It was a good portrait of the city at play. The security was heavy, especially around the India Gate. Their method of making sure a bomber didn’t run a car into the monument was to erect bamboo scaffolding loosely held together with twine. I went to dinner with Puran and Tahara, who is visiting from Hyderabad (which sounds not nearly as good as Delhi) in Kamla Nagar. Then we went to the Krishna temple at Chandni Chowk. There was a concert being held with tabla, guitar, and an old singer reciting sacred hymns that I could have mistaken for Bollywood music. The temple was illuminated with strands of Christmas lights. It’s kind of the same thing; it’s Krishna’s Birthday, they should start calling it Krish-mas. I should really be a comedian. There were people cooking what looked like beef ribs in the temple, which I’m positive is not allowed. The only explanation I can come up with is that since Krishna is a Kshatriya warrior, he eats meat? There was an offering table to Krishna, portrayed as a butter thief child. I went around to all the different deity statues and performed puja on them.