Delhi Smells

The smells in Old Delhi are described in guidebooks as “overpowering”. But beyond the underlying mingle of sweat, urine and flowers, what makes the old Delhi experience deeply olfactory is the clarity and isolation of unique smells. Weaving along the sidewalk, suddenly there is an inkling of oil and flour in my nose. “Mmmm” I think, and continue walking. Suddenly I am engulfed with the smell; the essence of fried puffs and samosas envelopes me in the thick air. The oil is thick. The heat is thick. The humidity is thick. The crowd is thick. Samosa-essence melts and mingles into a samosa cloud. I pass the samosa stand but the samosa cloud lingers until the equally encompassing smell of freshly carved wood and petrol of a carpentry shop replaces it.

I step over a splashed, thick, yellow liquid on the sidewalk, beneath the electricity poles as tangled as the lives the stolen current illuminates. Hundreds of wires crossed and twisted every which way: stolen, borrowed, reclaimed by Delhites from their state power supply. The scent of the yellow splash cannot permeate the overpowering carpentry smell. Lentils or vomit, I can’t smell.

The hot, wet, smell-clouds accumulate into pools of urine along imposing red walls, then abruptly dissipate inside the mosque’s courtyard. The red sandstone, the marble, the decadent carving, smell like cool, dry earth. The stones twinge my bared feet, but the burn is as dry and clean as the air. The wind breathes, the sun pounds, the children dance, the faithful perform ablutions, the exhausted nap in the shaded periphery, and the demure scent of a tiny white pigeon feather stuck to my bare toe does not infiltrate my marble-calmed nostrils.

What's in an anniversary?

February 7 is ostensibly a significant date in Haiti. But yesterday, February 7, 2011, seemed a marker of stagnation, rather than a time to reflect or move forward. Being a girl who tends to cry on her birthday, I relate, but yesterday seemed less a marker in the linear progression in time and more a meditation on cycles of crisis.

Twenty-five years ago, on February 7, 1986, Jean-Claude Duvalier fled a popular uprising on a US plane after a fifteen-year reign marked by human rights abuses and embezzlement of national funds. Yesterday Jean-Claude Duvalier was back in Haiti after a surprise return last month, and said nothing.

February 7 is the date current president René Preval was set to leave office, though an emergency measure passed parliament last year extending his term by three months. Angry young men took the streets calling for the departure of the widely despised statesman, and riot cops rained tear gas over tents. Preval remained in power, and while an official confirmed the extension, Preval himself said nothing.

Meanwhile rumors have been flying that Aristide, the two-time former president who left on a US plane after a popular uprising in 2004, is back or on his way—He’s in Venezuela! He’s in Cuba! His passport’s ready! His passport’s in Miami! He’s in South Africa, still in exile…Popular sentiment toward Aristide is mixed. He was originally viewed as a savior for the popular masses, though his reputation waned as little changed during his two separate and uncompleted terms. He still has a significant following in Haiti, and supporters regularly stage small protests demanding his return.

But outside the circle of outsized egos that dominates Haitian politics, February 7, 2011 was a pretty wretched day to be a street vendor. In the morning, some women trekked to their stalls in the market in Route Frères, to find their merchandise burned to the ground. The cause of the fire is so far unknown, whether it was accidental or criminal. But the outcome of the fire is women who’ve lost all their investments, many who have no bank accounts, many of them single, and many of them responsible for several children. Women wailed and recounted their losses as wind spread ashes, feathers and the nauseating odor of chickens roasted alive in their cages.

Downtown, when the protests started heating up, vendors scrambled to gather their goods ahead of the running, yelling crowds trailed by riot police. When tear gas and bullets rained over tents, babies sobbed, women yelled, and a street vendor gave me a water sachet to wash my eyes—for free since I had no small change—more profit down the drain.

In the midst of the political wrangling, and with the increasingly evident parallels between Haitian presidents’ power addictions and failures to improve the country’s economic and social travails, February 7, was just a little worse than usual for some Haitians.