High Contrast

I had occasion to go to a fancy restaurant in one of the many new malls scattered around Delhi. The mall was as fancy as anything in New York, Paris or Los Angeles. In front of the mall there was a large garden, sculpture and performance area. The cars pulling into the mall were Audis, Mercedes and other show off cars. After a delicious lunch, I walked out through the perfectly manicured garden area in order to cross the road and look for an old bicycle inner tune and a 2 liter bottle to hold some extra petrol. On the other side of the road there was a little area with no buildings. Within that ¼ acre there were probably 100 people living under tarps. Family goats wandered about eating rubbish. I had to step over a number of infants lying on the sidewalk. The latrine was an area between the sidewalk and the tarps.

The contrast on the two sides of the street could not have been more stark.

Just past this open area I found a bicycle repairman but he was having lunch and I didn’t see any old inner tubes lying about. Further down the road toward the Metro station I did find a used motor oil container that would work fine to hold petrol.