Oh the shopping! The range and beauty of the textiles and jewelry here dazzles me. The art, with painstaking hand-drawn details and filigrees, is sold from little stalls where barefoot men sit behind the pictures and urge you to buy two or three. There are bazaars and melas (like craft fairs) and Dilli Haat and markets and modern malls that make the Mall of American look measly.
First, Hauz Khas. A former teacher last spring told me that this was the Georgetown of Delhi, so in my first week, when a friend and I visited, I was kind of shocked. Its muddy paths and tangles of power lines looked nothing like the tony DC neighborhood I frequented during my years living there. But, after two months, I see Hauz Khas for the funky mix of shops and great restaurants that she did. This is a picture from our first week, my first experience in my neighborhood shopping district, Hauz Khas:
City Walk Mall is on the west side of Delhi where all the new development is occurring with industries from around Asia and the West building soaring office towers outside of the city limits' height restrictions. Here, you can buy Parisian pastries and macaroons, household goods and get a killer Thai foot massage for 45 minutes for 17 dollars.
Friday night after school, we climbed into the Ambassador and went to Pahar Ganj. The chaos is filled with pottery, cupboard knobs, scarves for 50 cents each, silver and emerald earrings for $40 (no, didn't buy them), a store that sells bath gels, perfume and sandlewood prayer beads (among many other things, earning the name "Everything Store" from a friend who took me), and street food that filled the air with the scent of spices and fresh bread and searing vegetables. I never cease to be amazed by the fact that the dirt, the motorcycles that never run over your toes but come darn close, the touts and hawkers don't phase me. Everywhere I turn is a feast for the senses. And I have learned how to say "ney-ney." No.
I realized I have no pictures of what is the favorite market of Westerners, Khan Market. When I go there, I am all about business. Anokhi has the most beautiful block prints, colors and designs I have ever seen. (Yes, I have bought these.) And Fabindia is, well, fab. Thanks to this store, begun by a Westerner as a channel for Indian craftsmen and women to sell their goods at a fair price, I have beautiful pillows and curtains. I have learned that if I want clothes, I go to Greater Kailish Block 1, a little shopping area set around a city park south of me. For cheap western clothes or tunics, as well as the best-looking vegetables (sold illegally off of carts), I go to Sarojini Market. INA is the market that has everything, including live chickens and spices. Dilly Haat is where craftspeople from around India go to show their goods. It changes every month, giving new crafts and artisans a chance to sell to the urban market.
I went to City Walk at the end of our second week and knew that if I need a Western fix, that is where I would go, but I have not been back since. If you want something here, you can find it. You just have to know where to go. I just discovered a nearby gourmet market that has Swiss chocolate for a third of the cost I paid in Switzerland. I bought lights for Diwali at a Christmas store in the same market.
A student in my journalism class, who had lived in Cuba for a few years, said her first thought upon hearing that her father was being relocated to Delhi was "Capitalism." Very true.
"How much for this bracelet?"
"2500 rupees."
"What is your best price?"
"You buy more, we talk."
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