Warming Up After Delhi's Winter

By M.Santhiran M.Santhiran, Bernama's correspondent in New Delhi shares his take on the Indian capital city and its unique social nuances. NEW DELHI, Feb 23 (Bernama) -- With the north Indian weather turning pleasant after the bone chilling cold winter, I too have warmed up to life in New Delhi. Into my third week here, as a Malaysian I have begun learning plenty of social nuances at times that really surprised me. Delhi is a cosmopolitan city divided into the Old and New Delhi and much of its population come from neighbouring states of Haryana and Punjab to eke out a living. Due to the heterogenus population, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi are widely spoken here with almost 90 per cent of the Delhi population being Hindus, followed by Muslims and Christians. Like I have said earlier knowing Hindi is essential in communicating at the street level and English is only widely used in the officialdom. My driver is now my part time Hindi teacher and I have been making tremendous progress in the language that I have been polishing up with traders and shopkeepers that I patronise. Having said that, there were many occasions where I was at a loss and just replied "Mei Hindi neihi mallum," (I can't speak Hindi). DELHI'S UNIQUE SOCIAL NUANCES And speaking of the social nuances of the people of Delhi, I have learnt that here people cherish family values and believe in spending quality time with the family. Therefore on weekends and public holidays there won't be much crowd outdoors including in shopping complexes. The families stay indoors. This is a stark contrast with the Malaysian urban culture where people make use of the weekends and public holidays to patronise public places. Also, I hardly came across people consuming alcohol in public places or eateries patronised by families. And during the eve of Delhi legislative assembly election, a fortnight ago, I ended up in a pub cum restaurant since my regular South Indian restaurant was closed. Much to my surprise the waiter told me it was a "dry day". I did not know what he meant by that and when inquired he replied that except for food, no beer or liquor would be served. Learning that I'm a foreigner there, the waiter went on to explain that on the eve of elections, whether state or federal election, alcohol is banned by the authorities. The same rule applies on special days in India - on the eve of Republic and Independence Day and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday or better known as "Gandhi Jayanthi." The next day my landlord also reminded be that on important days like elections and commemortive days shops would remain closed up to 6,00 pm and thus I have to stock-up in advance. Checks at my regular grocery shops and mini markets indicated no alcohol beverages were available on the shelves as well. THE MUMBAI STORY Meanwhile, over the last weekend I was in Mumbai courtesy of Tourism Malaysia. As mentioned earlier that security is tight in India, I had a tough time explaining my misspelled name in my air ticket. Instead of Santhiran, it was typed "Santira" and this is how my woes began. I had to make few calls to Tourism Malaysia officials, who sponsored my trip for the security people to verify my actual details as in my passport and had to wait for a long time before allowed to check-in. It was really a frustrating experience but I believe that this is one of the many that I would be going through while I'm in India. Both New Delhi and Mumbai, India's capital city and financial hub respectively, have enhanced security protocols since terrorist attacks on the Parliament building in Delhi and the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. -- BERNAMA