Delhi (29 page)

Like most gluttons, my geography is mapped in hunger. And boy had I come to the right place. Wealthy Dilliwallas—at least those not on a diet—seem to navigate the way I do. Their monuments are kebab stalls, their boulevards lined with laddoos. And Delhi, once a culinary backwater, has become a foodie's city. It's a whole culinary universe, expanding fast just like our own.

You can stumble to its old centres of gravity, now left darkened and shrunken like dying stars, or to strange outposts of other culinary cultures. Here you may find some of the most celebrated of Delhi's food. The positive side of the not-entirely-coerced end of my vegetarianism was that I got to try it. In fact, I decided to introduce a clause in my vegetarianism that seems to annoy carnivores far more than even the most zealous vegan: the ‘When in Rome Do As the Romans Do' clause (optional: the vomitarium, inappropriately timed imperial fiddling, sodomy).

The Red Fort is one of the world's more discouraging heritage sites, because its earlier opulence is not in doubt. Built for the great emperor Shah Jahan as the palace of his new capital, it has seen better days. The British used it to garrison troops, and it has never really recovered. It still boasts corners of opulence and beauty, and hosts India's Independence Day celebrations on 15 August. But now the complex is faded with too much sun and exposure, unable to compete with the better-preserved examples at Fatehpur Sikri and Agra.

A short hop away, the candy-cane-coloured Jama Masjid retains the magnificence of its sheer scale. With Feckless Brother's presence to guarantee I wouldn't become lustfully overwhelmed by its phallic shape I was finally able to ascend one of its minarets. The view was spectacular: the pigeon-flecked grey petals of the mosque's domes, the motley orange and blue and brown of Old Delhi opened up like a tablecloth, fading to a musty horizon.

In the Masjid's shadow Feckless Brother and I gorged ourselves on Old Delhi's famous food: thick greasy parathas, melt-in-the-mouth kebabs, and Mughal curries swimming in ghee, all wonderfully, illicitly meaty. Around us the streets were dark and loud. The great thoroughfare of Chandni Chowk was once a ‘moonlit square', the nighttime glow of its canals—now long gone—reflecting the glory of its lavish
haveli
mansions and silver
(chandi)
merchants.

Today many areas in the walled city of Shahjahanabad have been designated slums. Tourists persevere, even when many richer Dilliwallas have given up visiting except to have wedding outfits copied. It's the sort of place that says ‘You want authenticity? I'll give you goddamn authenticity. Have some spleen, and giardia.' One of my housemates
literally
cycled over a bleeding heart on one of its side-streets.

South Indian food may be the best of all. Breakfast: take a wee pot of spicy sambar broth. Dip
vada
, crisp savoury lentil doughnuts, or swap them for the healthier
idli
, white flabby dimpled discs that soak up the soup (though Auntie used to feed me six, rather than the usual couple). Or try dosas, pancakes left to ferment overnight and served with coconut chutney, as long as my arm. Back in Oxford I mourn the fact that the United States nabbed most South Indian migrants, and their grub.

But fear not: Delhi's tastes are far from parochial. You can blow your ill-gotten rupees on dim sum, sushi and Italian fare with equal ease. In the big hotels and South Delhi's lavishly appointed restaurants, Sunday brunch is multi-cuisine, manydollared, cocktail-spattered affairs, full of bright young things and glamorous couples and awful children bullying their nannies (who are not permitted to eat). ‘Asian fusion', that mysterious concept, is popular too. Delhi is plugged into to all the great international fads: bubble tea, frozen yoghurt; you can even get your hands on a cronut, the bastard offspring of croissant and doughnut.

Hey, you might even be able to get hold of beef. Hindu respect for cows is legendary. (Recognizing this, the British Council has gone so far as to paint its Indo-friendly building with the black-on-white patches of a Friesian heifer.) Cow slaughter is banned in several Indian states, including Delhi, more or less. The infrequent beef of Delhi is killed on legal technicalities, sneakily imported—or more often substituted with ‘buff', the less controversial water buffalo meat (and a little chewy but OK to my turncoat vegetarian tongue).

This is a universe best experienced through your hands. There is nothing more sensual than eating with your fingers. Suddenly food is three-dimensional, a mass of textures and caresses, squishes and slickness. I could feel every arc and whorl of my fingertips embracing it. For someone brought up under the tyranny of silverware, it's another illicit thrill. Try it. First, wash your hands. The restaurant might not have soap, but this modicum of hygiene is the reason why India's population numbered in the hundreds of millions while Europeans were still sewing themselves into rotting furs for the winter. Take your right hand (your left does unspeakable things). Playing with your food is positively encouraged: mix rice and wetness through with your hand, until you can form it into pellets. Form the fingers into a shovel, and scoop. Flick the food with your thumb into your waiting maw. Do not insert your fist.

Now all you need is good company, and something to wash all that deliciousness down.

13

L
IVERS

What's the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don't yield to them? Makes it so bally discouraging for the great city.

—P.G. Wodehouse,
Carry On, Jeeves

F
ieldwork, that swirl of boredom and panic, is a thirsty business. On this front I discovered my new home was both a blessing and a curse. Delhi today is a city of gin.

Academia has its own version of the intrepid explorer: the old-fashioned anthropologist. He's a more scientifically minded version of Indiana Jones—in fact, Susan Sontag actually called the species ‘the heroic anthropologist'. Wielding his notebook, he is a fearless martyr to the cause. He is utterly committed to documenting the Truth, monk-like in his self-control.

More recently, anthropologists have belatedly conceded that they, too, are people. But still the good anthropologist is meant to be above ordinary mortal temptation. In my pale map-lined room before Delhi, I read solemn paragraphs about this and nodded wisely. The good anthropologist eschews fear and lust, tolerates discomfort without a murmur, and spends the evenings writing fiendishly detailed field notes. She certainly does not accidentally schedule interviews for ice bars, or spill beer all over the field diary.

Unfortunately for my aspirations, Feckless Brother brought with him a litre of good Scotch. It was a big peaty devil from Islay, an island as empty and sodden as Delhi is dense. Fittingly, whiskey brings together the two sides of my family history. The Mothership's grandfather was an exciseman who marched sternly between Scotland's famous distillery sites, from Islay to Knockando to Aberlour. Now India is the world's largest whiskey market:
The Economist
reports that Indians drink almost as much of it as the rest of the world put together. It makes a good gift for professional men, with Indian drinkers favouring spirits over beer or wine. Big international brands like Johnny Walker are popular with the rich, who flash it about at posh social gatherings. Most of the stuff drunk is not Scottish, though, but much sweeter Indian varieties. Many are produced from molasses rather than malted barley; purists dismiss them as mere rum. They still have hearty Scottish-sounding names—Royal Stag, Bagpiper, McDowell's, Imperial Blue.

Indians aren't big drinkers on average. Early on I stumbled into a pub quiz, an über-British tradition given a viciously competitive Indian twist: the whole thing was like a gameshow, with one team in the public spotlight at a time. I remember looking disconsolately at the tiny glass handed to me:
‘This
is a pint?' In Britain the pint—or to use its awkward full name, the
imperial
pint—is 568 ml. This looked about two-thirds of that. Not girly enough to be a half-pint, not as satisfyingly diuretic as the real deal. (Whiskey, meanwhile, comes in a mysterious old measure called a ‘peg'.)

I could have done with something more substantial. Humiliatingly,
all
the questions seemed to be on Britain. ‘Which popular British sitcom contained the catchphrase “Good moaning”? What is the name of the Duchess of Cambridge's puppy? Who was the first male voice of the UK's Speaking Clock?'

I felt all the eyes on me, and scored a resounding zero points. Unsurprisingly, the prize money was won by a bespectacled group from IIT, the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. They weren't drinking.

Traditionally, religious and caste norms discouraged alcohol consumption. Islam formally proscribes it, while Hindu Brahmins are similarly deterred by classical texts. Gandhi was a staunch opponent of drinking; this survives in the strict prohibition in his home state of Gujarat.

This is slowly changing. Legal drinking ages are barely enforced, and elite youths are beginning to drink ever earlier in life. While the provinces suffer from the effects of toxic illegal hooch, Delhi is full of drunk drivers. Female drinkers are particularly stigmatized in much of India, and the vast majority of Indian women are what the World Health Organization calls ‘lifetime abstainers'. In Delhi, though, wealthier women and students emerge to drink and dance. Some clubs even have ‘Ladies' Nights' in order to try to improve the gender ratio.

This novel booziness is fuelled by big brands. The state monopolies inherited from the colonial regime have given way in much of the country to the triumph of the market. Most forms of alcohol advertising are banned. But the big liquor companies have proved themselves capable of beating the threat of the traditional liquor lobby and surviving foreign competition—a pesky little law isn't going to stop them. They sponsor sports events and awards, extend the brand through new products like mineral water, and use word-of-mouth and internet marketing. Bollywood stars on and offscreen knock the hard stuff back. The government largely tolerates this. After all, alcohol taxes and licences are a useful source of revenue for them too.

Feckless Brother's Scotch was dark and tasted of fishing boats, even at blood temperature. The liquid's level moved steadily down night after night—well, it hardly seemed sensible to cart it all the way home. I could generously give the empty to Kamala: the prestigious bottles are refilled with cheaper stuff and resold. And a dose of self-abuse is all part of the romance of the travel experience. The less wholesome expats through the ages have had a tendency to pickle themselves in alcohol. Just look at the seductive list of wandering authors who turned whiskey priest: Mark Twain, Lord Byron, James Joyce, Graham Greene, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac and, er, Winston Churchill.

Delhi evenings are intoxicating in any case. Night falls with tropical speed, dropping a shutter over the city. It is an ambivalent darkness, simultaneously threatening and tempting. The city's geography shifts subtly. At dusk the polite world strolls around the grand blocky hoop of India Gate, a war memorial made oddly festive, families eating and posing before suddenly vanishing back to their quiet suburbs. The grand embassy-lined avenues of Chanakyapuri, empty at the best of times, become a vacuum. Elsewhere everything is flashing neon promises in pools of black.

As ever, I had evening plans. Delhi is an intensely sociable city and anyway, being away from home forces you into good behaviour around strangers. So many people, Indian and non-, can't guarantee how long they'll stay here before they move on to better jobs in Bangalore, Bombay, Singapore, London. Everything is always in a gentle state of social ferment—you've got to keep your complement of friends up.

Tonight would be a particularly sociable night.

Back in Blightistan, I'm more slumdog than millionaire. My potential career options (academia? international development?) have been strongly influenced by the fact that being badly dressed is part of the uniform—gown, fermented tweed, sola topi. Yet one febrile May night I found myself trying to extract a semblance of civility—nay, glamour—from my dusty wardrobe.

Alpha Housemate had temporarily unplugged herself from her
Matrix-
like symbiotic relationship with
Sex and the City
reruns, and snared us tickets to a ‘fashion-show-cum-IPL afterparty'. A designer friend of hers, an improbably leggy ex-model in Dame Edna glasses, was featuring. In attendance would also be—I quote—‘hunks'. I refused, started to warm up to the idea, found our companion would be a blonde Russian model, and refused again. Still, I was tempted.

‘Alpha, I'll see you there,' I said, twitching the blinds. (It felt wonderfully like espionage. I could see why the downstairs neighbour liked it so much.) Time to head off out into the night.

The streets outside lay deserted. Vasant Kunj suddenly shed its hum of traffic, except for the odd uniformed taxi driver drinking in the back of his car. The street was almost unlit, leaving pools of black frustrating for the female night owl. Faces reared suddenly out of the gloom.