What this all means though is that I should likely wind up chit chatting about my time in India.
This won't be the last post on India, though it is likely to be the penultimate post. We shall see. This one is about the Tughlaqabad Fort, or at least it takes place there, what it's about is an exercise in probabilty theory at this point, and lord only knows what my atoms are up to while I'm distracted writing.
I joined two meetup groups. The first you've heard about plenty of times, as it is the Delhi Photo Club group that I've hung out with a few times now. Thinking I need to find an equivalent when I get back to Toronto. The second group is called The Happiness Project. Read the book. Got the album. Figured joining the group would be a good step too.
See. Happy.
That's me, Minati directly beside me, and beside her is Sita.
Alot has changed in a few short weeks. For example, when I took this picture of the random wandering cow on busy street it was actually the first such random wandering cow I had seen, and I was pretty excited about it. Five days ago the auto-rickshaw I was in basically slalomed it's way through about half a dozen and I barely batted an eye.
So the group met up at Saket Metro and then we all either hopped into someone's car or grabbed an auto-rickshaw and made our way over to the fort, which I may just refer to as Tugh or something. Upon arrival we all got tea. I was told to sit down. Seriously, I tried not to. I offered my seat to any of the other 14 or so people there at the time, but no, apparently it was for me. And why? Well, Minati tells me it's mulungu, which is a Mozambique expression for when the stranger gets to sit down.
That's Ajit in the middle. He's a friend of Minati's.
Minati and Ajit both belong to Hash House Harriers, a self-described drinking group who have a running problem. Basically they get together for a 10km run and then go for drinks, something that I am up for 50% of.
This is part of the Tugh wall.
Tughlaqabad Fort was built in the early 14th century, stretches over 6km, and was abandoned after only six or so years. The story goes that Ghazi Malik, founder of the Tughla dynasty, wanted this fort built so badly that he ordered all workers in Delhi to stop any other project and work on the fort. A sufi mystic, now the saint Nizamuddin Auliya, got ticked about this as he was having a step well built at the time, and put a curse on the fort and on Ghazi Mulik. And sure enough a few years later Ghazi Mulik got squashed by a falling tent and this massive fort ends up abandoned. Meanwhile the well got built anyway as the workers just came at night when they'd finished their fort work for the day.
And these are some of the lovely people I got to wander around with for the morning.
That's the tomb that is across the road but is associated with the fort. It originally was connected with the fort and shared the protective wall. That road the cow was on? I'm sure it has something to do with why that part of the wall isn't there anymore.
Oh, and monkeys. This was one of my first encounters with monkeys in Delhi.
This is a step well that is continuing to be excavated at Tugh.
And this is the system that is used to cart dirt and debris from the bottom of the well up and out.
Single bucket attached to a looooong rope that is walked out by two women. Dirt gets from bucket to pan and carried away, while the bucket is lowered again. Rinse and repeat.
Did you see how deep this well is?
So yes, it's a cool set of ruins that makes for a great place to wander around, taking pictures, chatting with people and getting to know them a bit. Which is pretty much what the point is to this particular group. Some knew a bit of the history and we talked about that. Some, like myself and Minati, had our cameras out and were busy taking photos. Some, like Ajit, climbed pretty much anything they thought they could climb. We brought snacks, we hung out, and like I said, it was a great way to spend the morning.
That operation you see above is them making fuel cakes out of cow dung. You can see the fuel cakes near the bottom left.
And that's the family photo for the day.
Now, this is a before and after.
What I wasn't quick enough to get was the inbetween moment when this furry fellow stole that bag of peanuts he is busy eating right out of the hands of one of the guys on the walk. Just sauntered up like he was minding his own business, snatched the bag, and up the wall.
It was awesome.
These are of the tomb.
And that, Minati who lived in Mozambique for several years informed me, is a termite hill.
This is lunch at Rosang. Such good food. It is all thanks to Sita saying yes to lunch and suggesting this place that I got to learn about this place.
Now that's me about to try raja mircha, or king chili, which is apparently the hottest pepper known to humankind. Ajit asked for it, and when this little bowl was brought to the table people at other tables actually warned us about it.
There is a whole sequence of photos I am sparing you of me experimenting with this, and trying it with varying proportions of rice and dal until I was able to burn my lips off. Minati felt it important to properly catalogue my suffering.
That's all of us with the owner.
From here we continued on to the Khan Market and meeting up with some other folk.
"Other folk" being Maya, a friend of Minati's, also originally from India, but having returned about a year ago from having lived abroad for many years.
Given you've met everyone else in the below photo, I'm suspecting you can figure out which one Maya is.
So, how do you cap off a great day of exploring an old fort, meeting lots of fun, new people, and eating fantastic food? Well, if you're me, and it was this day, then you sit around with Minati and Maya, two self-proclaimed dorks, and gush over how awesome Joss Whedon is, talk Buffy, Firefly, superheroes, sci-fi, and pretty much geek out over all the stuff dorks geek out about. I mean, sure, I didn't do my usual Summer Glau is awesome rant, but it was still a great time.
Yes, dorks can geek. I'm not sure if the opposite is true.
I've got to say that I'm really very thankful to Neha, who I rented my room from. She is the one who got me using Meetup, but also suggested these two specific groups. And it's through The Happiness Project and the Delhi Photo Club that I met the majority of the people who shaped my time in Delhi and made it the amazing time that it was.
So yep, there's the origin story that explains some of the stuff with James a tiny bit better. Tune in next time for when our hero (that's me by the way) attempts to sum up his final two weeks in a snigle entry.
Perhaps open a bottle of your favourite something first to fortify yourself.
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