January 26, 2009
Our first day in India. Delhi on Republic Day. We have tickets to the Republic Day parade --primo seats in a viewing stand at the intersection of Janpath and Rajpath thanks to our friend Ravi Shankar. We get a cab to take us to the drop off point in the city center for 300 INRs (about $6) and we walk about a mile through numerous security checks with thousands of parade goers, passing hundreds of military police with submachine guns who bark at the crowd to move one direction or the other. We finally arrive at the final gate to our seats only to be told we can't bring in a backpack, camera or cell phone. After several attempts at redistributing our gear and telling the checkers that our i-phones are only calculators, we realize that we aren't going to make it through. One less-than-helpful guard says "can't you read the sign??" and points to the back side of the gate that lists the prohibited items. We stand to the side and don't feel so bad as we watch self-important diplomats get turned away as well and we can see glimpses of the parade through the tanks and military personal. ...a lot of precision marching by sold
iers with fancy hats (not sure that precision reflects the rest of the Indian military or police from what we've seen...) and a brass band on camels! (too bad Peter couldn't get a shot of that --we weren't supposed to be taking any pictures...most were surreptitiously 
taken with his "calculator" and were the backs of people's heads)
So that was our first introduction to India... after some whirlwind sight seeing with our guide to the QUTB Minar (highlighted in the PBS show "Story of India" --a tower constructed in 1193 at the onset of Islamic rule) and Huymayun's tomb --the precursor to the Taj Mahal, we were off to Mumbai the next day.
Our first day in India. Delhi on Republic Day. We have tickets to the Republic Day parade --primo seats in a viewing stand at the intersection of Janpath and Rajpath thanks to our friend Ravi Shankar. We get a cab to take us to the drop off point in the city center for 300 INRs (about $6) and we walk about a mile through numerous security checks with thousands of parade goers, passing hundreds of military police with submachine guns who bark at the crowd to move one direction or the other. We finally arrive at the final gate to our seats only to be told we can't bring in a backpack, camera or cell phone. After several attempts at redistributing our gear and telling the checkers that our i-phones are only calculators, we realize that we aren't going to make it through. One less-than-helpful guard says "can't you read the sign??" and points to the back side of the gate that lists the prohibited items. We stand to the side and don't feel so bad as we watch self-important diplomats get turned away as well and we can see glimpses of the parade through the tanks and military personal. ...a lot of precision marching by sold
iers with fancy hats (not sure that precision reflects the rest of the Indian military or police from what we've seen...) and a brass band on camels! (too bad Peter couldn't get a shot of that --we weren't supposed to be taking any pictures...most were surreptitiously 
taken with his "calculator" and were the backs of people's heads)So that was our first introduction to India... after some whirlwind sight seeing with our guide to the QUTB Minar (highlighted in the PBS show "Story of India" --a tower constructed in 1193 at the onset of Islamic rule) and Huymayun's tomb --the precursor to the Taj Mahal, we were off to Mumbai the next day.
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