Chandni Chowk old Delhi

A friend came from Geneva so I thought it would be nice to shake her clean sensibilities a little. We took a cycle rickshaw into the inner streets of Chandni Chowk and what a time we had. Hassan was our guide and he took us to places that perhaps foreigners don’t often go, so we climbed dark and dirty staircases and visited rooftops and looked down across old Delhi but more immediately at the filth and the squalor. The chilies by the sackful made us choke and the scent of the cloves filled our lungs. We visited the wholesalers of wedding saris and followed Hassan into dark allies and inner sanctums. We looked at doors and stood in admiration of their colour, contour and class and he looked at us perplexed. We wondered how on earth they work out the electricity lines and then watched a baby monkey chewing on one.We visited the simple house of a poet and looked at the beautiful handwritten manuscripts. We went past the great mosque where thousands of Muslims congregate every Friday.Opposite a butcher’s shop with decapitated goats heads all in a row. We smiled and waved at the school children and bought delicious fruit. On the way home a naked man walking serenely down the road. Her sensibilities were shaken and stirred and sizzling hot.