Walking to work

So at 7:00 or 7:30 I setoff for school. As I leave my apartment in the back of 9 Kautilya Marg, I am saluted by the military guard standing outside the building across the drive - Ben's father, retired UK Air Force, figured out that the person living there is a retired Indian Air Marshall. The guard calls me "Ma'am;" almost everyone I meet does - you get "ma'am"ed to death here!Crossing the four lanes of Kaulitya Marg is made more interesting by the wanderings of the neighborhood cows - bullocks, actually - huge, pacific and they rule the place. There's also traffic to consider.

Once I get to Rajdoot Marg, a quiet street with a fenced and treed medium strip with a small children's play area in one block, there are four quiet blocks to walk before I hit real traffic again, though there may be a cow or two cruising slowly. I pass a number of people who now know me as a teacher at AES (word gets around, and teachers are highly regarded here) : some private security guards by the more upscale housing, a lady streetsweeper, several Indian fathers and a grandfather bringing their children in the opposite direction to one of the four local schools - a public elementary and middle school and a Catholic elementary and middle school. Mostly they bring the children on bicycles, carrying one or two in front and one on the rear fender. School has importance; not everyone can afford the uniforms and books. Parents are proud to manage to send their children to school, and the students glow when they talk about it. Little kids like to practice their English, but grown-ups sometimes don't speak any, so we greet each other either verbally or with the Indian folded-hand greeting.

Halfway to school, I pass a Hindu temple, itself behind a power transfer station and a community center; most mornings my walk is accompanied by chanting and rhythmic bells - and sometimes an exceptionally exotically dressed man collects flowers from the median strip for temple garlands. Once I get to Pansheel Marg, where the Embassy is, the traffic is heavy and lights seem to be for the weakwilled (but traffic stops for cows; once I saw three cows, one lying down, block a four lane road, made six lanes by Delhi traffic, and no one so much as honked at them). There's a crossing guard for students - a high risk job if ever there was one. The entrance to the school is guarded; no one gets in without ID - but inside of the walls, the ambiance is calm, all gardens and Indian sculpture. It's a pleasant daily routine, one that feels neighborly and - traffic aside - like home.