Where I go

Part of this job gets me out and about the city quite a bit -- particularly last week, when I passed state lines into Uttar Pradesh three times (to Noida and Ghaziabad) and once to Haryana (Faridabad). Delhi is expanding in all directions, but the satellite cities are way far out, but that is where a lot of the industry is located. This week saw interviews with more guys who have their offices near their factories, so a touch more of real life than usual in non-discript office buildings.

On a memorable occasion in which I figured out that a guy's office was actually across the border in South Ghaziabad (if you want to know where these places are, maps.google.com is your friend), I took an autorickshaw as far as the border, a cycle rickshaw to a well-known (to them) restaurant and the back of a scooter to this place, and the same in reverse. I can tell you that far eastern Delhi is quite pretty: eucalyptus groves and empty space punctuated by industrial zones, new housing complexes and ridiculous malls that stand out like mesas. In another direction, along the famous Grand Trunk Road to the northeast, crossing the border meant clambering into a tempo with 15 labourers and a lot of baggage. And they were sweet enough to forgo the Rs. 3 charge for traveling 1.5 kms because they couldn't break a 50.

I don't know where I'm going with this, except to say that this is where the Indian economy is, not in the glitzy malls and call centres of 'India Shining'. Most of where I went was not shining, but it was alive. Today's interview took me to a small garments factory on the top of a small building in an alley of Paharganj, which Delhi-wallas would know as the grungy area where backpackers stay near the New Delhi Train Station... goats, dogs, bullocks, cycle rickshaws and mounds of al sorts create an obstacle course, the house is rusted and basic, the factory is not larger than an apartment. And yet 29 people are employed there, there are lives being lived and at least some wages being earned. It felt solid and real, if shabby (sha'abi), not like the platitudes of Incredible India...