Nizamuddin Basti

Here are some photos of Nizamuddin Basti, a poor Muslim quarter that grew out of a 14th century Sufi village (where I go to teach English to girls from the neighborhood).

go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thaliag/sets/72157622566869586

visits from the policewallah

Local police officers watching fireworks for the festival of Dussehra.

Every once in a while, we get a visit from our local police officer. He drives up on his motorcycle, his bushy mustache twitching, his facial expression a mix of determination and slight bewilderment. Minutes later the doorbell rings, and he and our landlord are standing in front of the door.

"He needs two copies of your visa and passport," Sanjay (our landlord) says. The police officer nods vigorously and his mustache twitches.

We dash into our rooms to retrieve some copies of our slowly diminishing stash of photocopies of every single documentation we have ever owned. Triumphantly, we emerge with several slightly tattered (that's what happens when you wade through knee-deep monsoon water) photocopies, which the police officer proceeds to turn upside-down and stare at. He finally nods and leaves.

Five minutes later, the doorbell rings again. This time, Sanjay and the police officer march into our apartment and sit down at our dining room table. The police officer, speaking rapid-fire Hindi, hands us the police registration forms we had to fill out when we moved into our apartment 5 weeks ago. He points to a part of the form we forgot to fill out, which goes something like this:

Village:
Village Police Office:
Village Post Office:

(A third of the form is devoted to physical features. It goes something like this (with my responses):
Mustache: no Face: small, round Hair: brown Eyes: brown Identification Mark: USA)

So, Kyle and I write down our respective villages (the small farming village of Zehlendorf, Berlin and the remote tribal area known as Palos Verdes, Los Angeles) and our post office and police offices ("Zehlendorf Police Office"; "Zehlendorf Post Office"). Meanwhile the police officer is looking at the "permanent address" part of Kyle's form with a very confused look on his face.

"This California -- is it district? A country?" he says.
"Oh, it's a state -- like Maharashtra," Kyle explains.
The police officer seems unsatisfied. More discussion in rapid-fire Hindi ensues between our landlord and the police officer on the status of California. Perhaps it is a separatist region? Finally, after much time spent wrinkling his forehead and asking us for five more passport photos, the police officer and the landlord leave, but not before explaining to us the reason of this surprise inspection.

Apparently Delhi is on red alert for terrorist attacks. So, the Lajpat Nagar Police are understandably concerned about foreigners' safety. Should anything happen, I am sure contacting my local post office in Germany via snail mail will guarantee my safety.

In general, security measures in Delhi are a parade of formalities with a whole lot of thin air behind them. Almost every public place (popular restaurants, markets) has a dinky-looking metal detector at the entrance. I've never seen them turned on once. The Delhi metro has much more enhanced security, but a recent encounter I had with a security guard made me think otherwise. I had my huge camera in my purse, which was being screened by a sleepy-looking security guard. As it came out, he looked at me with a big grin and said: "Camera, right?" I flashed him a big smile and said: "Yes, yes!" Of course.