The Only Jews in Nizamuddin

Vijay, wife and son

Our Lunch at Vijay's

Recently Restored  Humayun's Tomb

Men praying inside the Sufi Shrine

The Crowds at  Nizamuddin

(Click to play the Video)

We had a very fitful night sleeping - lots of jetlag. I fell asleep about 9:30pm and awakened at 1:30am. I am reading a great book on my Kindle app on my iPhone called “The Goldfinch” so I took a sleeping pill and read till once again I fell asleep. I then awakened about 6am and continued to read, until we got up and went down to breakfast. The Imperial has a grand breakfast buffet, every imaginable fruit, nut, bread, salmon, etc. I have a tradition at The Imperial of ordering a dish for breakfast that isn’t on the menu: Poha. They make it special for me and I love it. It is an Indian working-mans dish made from flaked rice, spices and nuts. It is delicious, and I suspect they like the fact that I order it. The chef came out to tell us he made it especially for us.

Vijay, our driver picked us up and we went to a shopping area we are familiar with: Hauz Khas Village. Before we started shopping we gave Vijay a gift from our neighbor Ruta of an Iphone 4 and an iPhone 3. He was very touched and appreciative. Ruta had been with Vijay earlier this year and we volunteered to take the iPhones to him. We don’t consider it charity, but it is great to be able to assist the people who make our travel experiences extraordinary. Hauz Khas is an area of trendy shops and narrow lanes. It is teaming with locals. It is adjacent to old Mughal ruins and we walked out to see the ancient graves and the remnants of the structures. Our task was for Cathy to buy 3 different outfits for the Bollywood wedding we will be attending in May. She found 2 out of 3, I guess there is more shopping to be had.

We have had Vijay as a driver for almost all of our trips to Northern India. He requested that we come to his house for lunch. His wife speaks no English, and he has two sons, one has challenges the other is very precocious. The live in  one room in a colony in the middle of Delhi. You walk thru a tiny kitchen in to a bedroom. That is all there is. For lunch they brought in two plastic chairs for Cathy and I, they sat on the bed to eat. His wife served a huge lunch, Dal, Rice, breads, Gobi (Cauliflower – my favorite), mixed vegetables, and something we had never had before: Nutri Nuggets. The Nuggets are made from soy beans and are the size of small bite of meat. But there is more: they have the texture of meat, and they are in a sauce that tastes like meat. Could have fooled me, I thought it was meat. It was delicious. It was a very special experience being invited into a home of someone you know. They had no sense of being poor, but rather were happy and proud to share their house and lunch with us. It was a great experience.

From Vijay’s we drove to see Humayun's tomb, the tomb of the Mughal Emperor Humayun. This is the center piece of a large area with many Mughal Tombs. I had recently heard a story on NPR that the tomb had been restored, and we decided to return to see it having visited it man years before. It is huge and thought to be the model for the Taj Mahal. The restoration is excellent and there is lots of documentation, explaining the process.

From there we drove to the Muslim area of Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah to listen to Qawwali singers sing the praises of Allah.

These religious singers are wondrous to hear, however getting to them is frightening. Being in Nizamuddin is like being in another country, in another time. It is extremely poor, 100% Muslim and very dirty and crowded. We walked down narrow lanes, not sure where we were going, simply being pushed along by the crowd. Eventually along the sides of the lanes they were selling paper plates filled with flowers. One of the sellers started yelling at us “take off your shoes” and handed both Cathy and I a paper plate covered with flowers. He also gave me a covering for my head. We left our shoes with him and continued down the narrow twisting lanes carried along with the crowd. We saw more and more vendors selling flowers and storing shoes. As the lanes twisted and turned, both Cathy and I were beginning to wonder if we could ever find our way back to the flower vendor and find our shoes, or would we, if we could ever get out of Nizamuddin have to next go shopping for shoes.

Eventually we arrived before a small Sufi shrine. We were pulled in and observed the grave covered in green cloth. There were signs everywhere, “Beware of pickpockets, they steal wallets, eye glasses and cell phones.” I became very aware of the constant pushing and shoving as men surrounded the tomb, crying, praying and rubbing their face against the cloth. It was sincere, they really were moved to be with the saint. Women were not allowed into the shrine, but could look through the latticework. Because of the teaming crowd, Cathy and I were holding hands all the while we were in the lanes, but here we were separated and I didn’t feel at ease. When I emerged from the shrine, I was immediately requested to sign a book and make a donation. As probably the only Jew surrounded by thousands of Muslims I didn’t think it was a good time to say I gave at the Temple, so I gave them 200 rupees. I found Cathy with another man, a book and an entry for 600 rupees, I waived him off saying I had given. We walked away.  I thought we were in the clear, but soon another man appeared and said Cathy owes 600 rupees. I decided it was best to pay and hoped my head covering didn’t look like a yarmulke. We then walked further looking and listening for the Qawwali singing we had come to hear. Eventually someone told us to sit, and we did. We were surrounded by others, who with us watched the men at the nearby Mosque kneel and pray. Soon after a group of men near us started singing the Qawwali praises of Allah. It was great to watch the devotional singing. The crowd all looked very poor, yet people stood up and walked over to the singers and dropped rupee notes in front of them as offerings. After about 30 minutes we decided to leave and thought it best to pay before leaving. We then started walking in our sox trying to best remember how we got there. I guess all of our donations paid off, because we eventually found our flower seller with our shoes. One more payment of 600 rupees for flowers and shoe storage and we walked on eventually leaving Nizamuddin. We found our driver and returned to our hotel, anxious for drink. We plan to eat at the hotel again tonight.