019 The Underground Market

Today was shopping day - my kinda day. We met up with our FIIB students who followed us to a place called Cottage Industries near Connaught Place, which was another government-run shopping place for souvenirs and the like. I didn’t find anything I really liked, so a few of us left after perusing the place for a little bit and grabbed breakfast at a McDonald’s across the street. We essentially had the freedom to do just about anything we wanted to on condition we visited an underground market, which sounded really exciting. Ariel and I wanted to get our saris tailored, but we hadn’t known that you could get your saris tailored at Cottage, so though we had brought them with us, we left them on the bus. Dumb! Anyway, after eating at McDonald’s we broke off from the large group and started making our way to Connaught Place as we wanted to get more pastries (hah!). Naturally, along the way, there were plenty of side stores and vendors which were much more my style of shopping, so we stopped in just about everyone in an effort to make sure all of us had enough souvenirs to take home. 

Getting ice cream - essential.

Before we actually reached CP, we checked the time and realized we still hadn’t gone to Palika Bazaar (the underground market) and would need to regroup pretty soon, so off we went in the other direction. Palika Bazaar was AWESOME – again, my kind of shopping experience. Unfortunately, because of time restraints, it was pretty much touch and go for our little group. We could only walk through and look at things before having to leave to meet with the rest of the group.

Once we reconnected with everyone, Ariel and I, as well as a few other FIIB students broke off from the big group to try and get our saris tailored. We walked around and took rickshaws trying to look for tailors and it was so much fun. 

Some of the vendors we saw along the way.

I really, really wished that we were given a little more free time in Delhi with our FIIB students to truly explore it, but that may just be me. I prefer independent exploration – too much structure takes the fun out of everything and you don’t really learn much unless you’re actively trying to do so. In any case, we eventually found a tailor who would be able to tailor our saris within 24 hours which was awesome. After getting our measurements taken, we paid the tailor a down payment of half of the tailoring cost and were soon on our way to meet the rest of the group at yet another market called Dilli Haat, which sells crafts and other goods from all over India. 

Dilli Haat entrance.

As we had arrived as the group was just about to leave, Ariel, Alex, Varun and I as well as a few other FIIB students ended up hanging out in Dilli Haat for a bit longer, breaking off from the big group again (rebels!). 

Some of the crafts available.

Pretty sweet looking tiger.

We got a little bit more shopping done, and I got henna on my hands which was super exciting.

Super stoked!

How cool is this?

We eventually caught up with the group at one of the malls and had the opportunity to go to a Gold Pass cinema to catch Gulliver’s Travels. The movie was crap, but the experience at the cinema was ridiculous in a good way. We had reclining sofas basically and free blankets, and most of us ordered dinner to enjoy with our movie was so good! I’m telling you…Fiesta Square is just not going to cut it from now on.

After the movie and dinner, we roamed around the mall for a bit and grabbed some coffee at my favorite coffee place – The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

We soon gathered outside the mall to wait for the bus and had one of the strangest experiences while doing so. First, our bus driver – who is super responsible, mind you – couldn’t be reached for some reason. He was either asleep or driving somewhere with poor reception, which was out of the ordinary. So we ended up having to wait for quite a bit. While waiting, these beggar children started approaching us asking for money and for food. Jarred, who was holding two pieces of cake from Coffee Bean looked like a jerk because he had two boxes of cake in his hands and was surrounded by apparently starving children. He actually held the two boxes up over his head so the kids couldn’t reach them. Alex, who we have now learned is the definite softie of the group, gives one of the kids 10 rupees – wrong move. Out of nowhere, this auto rickshaw full of beggar kids shows up and they spill out apparently detecting that Alex had given one of them money and they surround us tugging at shirts, begging, calling at us. STRESSFUL. Almost as stressful as Choki Dhani. Hah, kidding. Nothing was as stressful as Choki Dhani. And then they leave and try to climb in some other auto rickshaw only to have the owner take one of the girls and beat her – hard. I’m sure she’s fine, but it wasn’t a pretty sight…more people cried! After this little incident, Dr. Anand and Dr. Ellstrand decided that that was enough, so they called some taxis for us to get back to IDSA. By the time it was my group’s turn, our bus had arrived, so we had the entire bus to ourselves, which was nice.