It's the second week of April and daytime highs in Delhi are already approaching 110 F (43 C). Even native Delhiites are saying extreme heat has arrived earlier and more forcefully than usual this year. Mornings in Hauz Khas remain pleasant, but my routine of sipping coffee or chai on the front balcony, watching the birds, and soaking up sunlight before the heat bears down has lost its appeal. The heat comes earlier and earlier. I try to resist AC until the afternoon, typically cranking the window unit in my bedroom when I sit down to practice, but at this rate that ritual too may change. Moving around during the midday hours has become purely strategic. Surgical strikes to the market have replaced casual roaming, and errands (with the exception of lunch) are best run earlier or later in the day. There's no good reason to be outside between 11 am and 5 pm if you have any say in the matter.
On the days I must travel, the Delhi Metro has become my preferred means of conveyance. I started using the trains out of necessity, as my pakhawaj lessons with Mohan Shyam Sharma are held twice a week at his house in Badarpur, a section of southeast Delhi more accessible by metro than other forms of ground transportation. I've also started meeting Utpal da for tabla lessons at his house in Mehrauli, near Qutub Minar, several stops south from Hauz Khas on the yellow line. The stations--particularly those above ground--get rather warm, but the trains themselves tend to be magnificently air-conditioned. The Delhi Metro is only 27 years old and most of the trains are a good deal newer than that. They are far cleaner are more sophisticated than those I'm accustomed to in the United States, namely in San Francisco and New York. In New York you stumble upon a new train every once in awhile, but I don't think BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) has even purchased a train since the 90s. In Delhi, every train you ride is state-of-the-art.
In 2017, I used the metro a few times while visiting Delhi for a weekend of sightseeing with friends. I remember being impressed, but now that I have a sense of its utility in my day-to-day life it will be hard to resist. It's cheap, efficient, and icebox cold. If we lost power I'd honestly consider joyriding just for for the air. Back in February, Fulbright advised us to avoid the metro due to covid concerns and suggested auto rickshaws as the best alternative given the open-air design. I heeded the advice for six weeks and became fairly adept at hiring rickshaws, negotiating fares, and sometimes even chatting up drivers. These are all valuable skills, and I do love a rickshaw, but when it's 105-110 outside fighting your way through Delhi traffic in an open-air vehicle for any length of time loses its luster. When it's that hot, the logical course of action is to hire a rickshaw to the station, thus reducing a 10-minute walk to a 2-3 minute ride. That ride alone costs more than the metro fare, but we're still talking $1-2 for the entire commute, depending on the precise destination and whether rickshaws are required on both ends.
Today marks day nine of the chilla. As expected, I've had to shuffle my practice schedule here and there to accommodate other commitments. I forgave myself for practicing one hour instead of two Tuesday afternoon when I also had a lesson in Badarpur (and had suffered acute digestive distress throughout the morning hours). For the most part, I'm settling into a solid routine of spending the first hour of practice on basic strokes and and phrase combinations, then dedicating the second hour to cleaning specific repertoire. Some days I'll start the first hour with a little pakhawaj practice, but for the most part I'm tackling that in the mornings. After just one week, my vocabulary on the pakhawaj is still limited to the extent that there is only so much I can practice in one sitting. My attention tends to wander after about 30 minutes. That will change once I learn more material. Even given the limited material, pakhawaj practice makes for a peaceful morning meditation. I'll plan to post clips once I'm a little farther along, and I might as well post some tabla recordings while I'm at it. Maybe sharing a tabla solo will serve as the culmination of my current chilla. Plenty of time to think about that. For now, it's off to pick up a stack of clothes from our delightful dhobi, Radheshyam, and beat the heat with afternoon riyaz.
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