Capital Traffic Woes and Delhi Shopping

In previous postings, I described the vehicles (and other things) on Indian roads, and Delhi surpasses my earlier destinations in terms of the variety on the roadways. On a highway from Gurgaon (a suburb of Delhi) to Delhi, a bicyclist traveled by holding onto the shoulder of a motorcyclist and was being towed in this manner at about 40 mph in the middle traffic lane. Even considering the camels, elephants and heavily-laden rickshaws on the roads, this topped my list for hazardous and shocking transportation methods. Incredibly, the bike/motorcycle duo was traveling at night, when lights were low…

The new part of the city (New Delhi) is a leafy area of luxury hotels, wide avenues, embassies, diplomats’ homes, parks, and government buildings. I ate lunch in the Bukhara Restaurant at the Sheraton Hotel, called the “best Indian restaurant in the world” by the British Airways in-flight magazine. (Apparently, Bill Clinton raved about it on a recent trip to India.) Apparently not everyone had read the review, because my guests, two Burmese residents of Delhi, and a young Indian from Tamil Nadu, pronounced the food “like any other Indian food.” At $150 for lunch for four (without drinks except one Coke and bottled water), it was by far my most expensive meal in India, but for nearly two weeks I have been treated by Indian businesspeople and lawyers for my meals, so I can’t complain. Inexplicably, the BA in-flight magazine article captioned “48 Hours in Delhi” recommended (in addition to Bukhara) that visitors sample the food cooked on the street – something every single Indian and non-Indian alike insisted one should not do! I guess this particular bit of advice did not pass by the BA magazine’s lawyers…

Old Delhi is an exotic visual treat – there is a red fort from the Mughal era, plus an enormous mosque open to the public and endless street markets chock-a-block with secondhand booksellers and clothes sellers. I love to shop, but I’m no match for Indian vendors (who range from children selling trinkets at tourist sites to stall-sellers and retail shopkeepers) in either persistence or patience. Eventually I gave in to the lure of the exotic handcrafts, and bought purses, silver jewelry, and necklaces of natural stones like agate and quartz, all reasonably priced, even at the “starting” prices quoted. If I asked for the prices of three items, the first price was always lower than the second, the second lower than the third. It occurred to me later that the escalating price quote method was a way of making sure you bought at least the first item, because it was the cheapest. Bargaining can go on all day and begins in earnest once you accept a cup of tea or a soda. My negotiating method was to deduct 20-30 % of the starting price and tell the seller firmly that my first price was also my last. It wasn’t usually my last, but most often, it was my second-to-last. This technique probably didn’t get me the best prices, but it did limit the time I spent negotiating. For serious shoppers, the “real” jewelry is astonishing – think huge south sea pearls, multicolored gems such as rubies, emeralds and sapphires, uncut diamonds and 22K gold! Handcrafted into traditional designs, it’s very glamorous indeed. I looked and I even tried on, but didn’t seriously consider buying the pieces that appeared designed for a maharani or an empress.

Incidentally, once you buy something, the real sales pitch starts. The vendors apparently work on the theory that it’s easier to make multiples sales to an existing customer than to convert a mere browser into a customer. American financial services providers could take a useful page from this particular playbook.