(Quite ironically, I’m writing this listening to U. Srinivas, a Carnatic mandolin player and one of the most popular south Indian musicians today. I should be listening to an epic Hindustani vocal track, but I just cannot embrace the sounds of the north the way I have those of the south – with the exception of a few choice artists. It is true what they say: your loyalties will always lie in either south or north India, never both.)
It is difficult to explain the Asian Guest House; no space-heaters or even windows that fully closed, despite the fact that Delhi was in the throws of an unusually cold winter with evening temperaturess sometimes dipping below freezing. 24 hour running water meant that at any time of the day or night, a boy could be fetched to run you up a bucket of water. This water was only hot between the hours of 9 and 10 am. Most of the rooms were inhabitable because the place was under severe renovation, which was a problem because Sirish really needed to change his room. When we arrived, he was ushered into a room wholly outside of the guest house itself. The room had a newly redone bathroom and absolutely no windows. When he went to open what he thought was a closet, Sirish was promptly told that the door lead to a private office and should therefore not be opened. One night my bathroom wall fell into my bathroom, leaving a hole in the wall into the adjoining room. Another night the construction right outside of my door never stopped.
Despite, or perhaps because of these many sordid details, I became wholly enamoured with the Asian Guest House and refused to leave, even when Sirish made it very clear he thought I would be more comfortable almost anywhere else. Hell, the staff knew me, they knew my routine of two buckets of scalding hot water and a poorly made cup of instant coffee at 10am sharp, what more could a book-fair-walla need?
The book fair itself took place at Pragati Maidan, an enormous compound that contains 15+ convention halls of various sizes, lots of marginal fast-food joints, an amusement park, a water park and – in pseudo-Epcot Center style – a pavillion for each of India’s states. The whole place really is a surreal homage to 1960’s Soviet architecture, with the exception of the Andra Pradesh pavillion, which seems to have been designed by someone strangely confused by terms such as “avant-garde” and “post-modern.”
Perhaps the most fascinating and often upsetting aspect of Pragati Maidan is the large community of people who are entirely dependent upon the conventions centers as their only means of income and shelter. A great many men make their living building elaborate stands for convention participants (Sirish and I garnered more than a few stares when we set up our entire stand by ourselves). Small, filthy children run around the halls, rolling large magnets on the floor to collect scrap metal. Women gather discarded wood scraps to fuel the evening fires that glow about the convention center grounds. Dogs, goats and crows make the buildings their homes. And petty theivery is commonplace – we actually had 20,000 rupees ($500 US) stolen from our stand on the second day. There is absolutely no security and the halls are open to the public (unlike other book fairs, such as Frankfurt, which are strickly trade-based). I would love to do an in-depth look into this community wholly sustained by rotating conventions, fairs and shows. There is definitely an article there waiting to be written.
More on the Delhi and my Cinderella-like experience at the book fair to come….
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