{"id":357,"date":"2012-07-20T01:08:39","date_gmt":"2012-07-19T17:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/?p=357"},"modified":"2012-07-20T10:11:48","modified_gmt":"2012-07-20T02:11:48","slug":"tuesday-evening-in-delhi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/?p=357","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Evening in Delhi."},"content":{"rendered":"

Finally the children are asleep.\u00a0 We ought to be too but this is the only time we get to potter about. For dinner Meera made us a great chicken curry and okra and naan and home-made mango chutney.<\/p>\n

Breakfast was pawpaw, mango, home-made yoghurt and potato paratha.\u00a0 Delicious.<\/p>\n

After another slow start (Xavier slept till 10) Ravi drove us to the Doll Museum, against the recommendation of our lovely host Meera. Ravi informed us we were the first guests in five years to have requested a visit.\u00a0 I love a run-down Museum where the exhibitions were opened 30 years ago and have not been changed since.\u00a0 I was quite taken by a Russian cosmonaut doll, and by the Australian collection, with the cork hat and the black fellas kitch reinforced a few cultural stereotypes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

However, the collection is a vast and dusty display organised along national and ethnic lines, and includes some wonderful folk art and fabulous dioramas of the moon landing, and scenes from the Ramayana. Xavier\u2019s favorites were the Bulgarian and Japanese collection; Mei was taken with the groovy French girls in swirling Pucci-esque body suits with fur bell-bottoms. We were invited to wait for the book shop to open in the air-conditioned comfort of the Children\u2019s Book Library on the second floor of a wonderful cement 1960s building with wooden interiors.\u00a0 The library had a wall of old blond wood card index boxes and was peopled by a few old men.\u00a0 Entrance is free and it is a reading room for all. There was a lovely marble bust of Lenin and a little diorama.<\/p>\n

The Museum was set up by a famous political cartoonist who collected dolls: K. Shankar Pillai (1902-1989)<\/p>\n

(from WIki) The Museum was ready in 1965 and it was inaugurated by the then President of India, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, who appropriately named the building, ‘Nehru House’ after the late Prime Minister. The Museum started with a thousand dolls. Between 1965 and 1987 another five thousand were added-a vast majority coming as gifts. Today the volume has increased to 6,500 exhibits from almost eighty-five countries, giving it a truly international character.<\/p>\n

The Museum is listed in the itinerary of all visitors to Delhi. Some of the important dignitaries who have visited the Museum and recorded their appreciation are: U. Thant, the then Secretary General of United Nations, Madame Tito of Yugoslavia, Queen Frederika of Greece, the Queen of Thailand, the sister of Shah of Iran (!!), the wives of the President of Mexico and Indonesia, of the Prime Ministers of Poland and South Korea and the UN Secretary General and cultural delegations from many countries.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.childrensbooktrust.com\/sicc.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

As we drove down the busy road from the Museum we passed the building of The Times of India banner. I was annoyed that I could not get a picture, and could not go back as the road was too busy.<\/p>\n

Later in the day we went to a couple of bookstores in Khan Markets (more on that later) where I picked up the collected works of Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shadid Ali (quoted earlier) for the princely sum of 350 Rps, which is about $5.\u00a0 There is no tax on books in India and it is rich in titles and all kinds of bargains if you are not going to Srinigar and Ladakh for the next 2.5 months dragging your bags behind you.<\/p>\n

I Dream It is an Afternoon when I Return to Delhi<\/strong><\/pre>\n
<\/pre>\n
<\/pre>\n
At Purana Qila I am alone, waiting<\/pre>\n
for the bus to Daryanganj. I see it coming,<\/pre>\n
but my hands are empty.<\/pre>\n
\u201cJump on, jump on,\u201d someone shouts,<\/pre>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve saved this change for you<\/pre>\n
for years. Look!\u201d<\/pre>\n
A hand opens, full of silver rupees.<\/pre>\n
\u201cJump on, jump on.\u201d The voice doesn\u2019t stop.<\/pre>\n
There\u2019s no one I know. A policeman,<\/pre>\n
handcuffs silver in his hands,<\/pre>\n
asks for my ticket.<\/pre>\n
<\/pre>\n
<\/pre>\n
I jump off the running bus,<\/pre>\n
sweat pouring from my hair.<\/pre>\n
I run past the Doll Museum, past<\/pre>\n
headlines on the Times of India<\/pre>\n
building, PRISONERS BLINDED IN A BIHAR\u2028JAIL, HARIJAN VILLAGES BURNED BY LANDLORDS.<\/pre>\n
Panting, I stop in Daryaganj,<\/pre>\n
outside Golcha Cinema.<\/pre>\n
<\/pre>\n
<\/pre>\n
Sunil is there, lighting<\/pre>\n
a cigarette, smiling. I say,<\/pre>\n
\u201cIt must be ten years, you haven\u2019t changed,<\/pre>\n
it was your voice on the bus!\u201d<\/pre>\n
He says, \u201cThe film is about to begin,<\/pre>\n
I\u2019ve bought an extra ticket for you,\u201d<\/pre>\n
and we rush inside:<\/pre>\n
<\/pre>\n
<\/pre>\n
Anarkali is being led away,<\/pre>\n
her earrings lying on the marble floor.<\/pre>\n
Any moment she\u2019ll be buried alive.<\/pre>\n
\u201cBut this is the end,\u201d I turn<\/pre>\n
toward Sunil. He is nowhere.<\/pre>\n
The usher taps my shoulder, says<\/pre>\n
my ticket is ten years old.<\/pre>\n
<\/pre>\n
<\/pre>\n
Once again my hands are empty.<\/pre>\n
I am waiting, alone, at Purana Qila.<\/pre>\n
Bus after empty bus is not stopping.<\/pre>\n
Suddenly, beggar women with children<\/pre>\n
are everywhere, offering<\/pre>\n
me money, weeping for me.<\/pre>\n
The poem appears in his collection The Half-Inch Himalayas<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finally the children are asleep.\u00a0 We ought to be too but this is the only time we get to potter about. For dinner Meera made us a great chicken curry and okra and naan and home-made mango chutney. Breakfast was pawpaw, mango, home-made yoghurt and potato paratha.\u00a0 Delicious. After another slow start (Xavier slept till […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-josie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Afwe-5L","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}