Delirious Delhi: As Dave Prager Saw It

Delhi(PTI) Expats often face challenges in Delhi but for US-based adman Dave Prager, the joy of living here far outweighed these challenges so much so that he tries to demystify the city by chronicling how he and his wife experienced: isolated, overwhelmed, and loving every minute of their nearly two-year-long stay.

"Every expat has different challenges. Some expats have a lot of trouble adjusting to having maids at home and peons in the office. Others have trouble with the pollution, or the heat. For me, my biggest challenge was the traffic, because I commuted from Delhi to Gurgaon every day. But for us, the joys of living in Delhi far outweighed the challenges," he says.

Dave was a copywriter working at a Madison Avenue advertising agency until fate offered him the opportunity to spend a year-and-a-half working at the agency`s office in Gurgaon. He and his wife Jenny Steeves leaped to spend the next 18 months "immersed in the cuisine of their dreams".

And then ‘Delirious Delhi’ was born, a 392 pages book offering hilarious anecdotes, astute observations, and attempted comprehension about what the couple encountered, ate, and stared at while stuck in traffic in Delhi.

"Delhi`s only going to get more influential in the world economy. That`s one reason I wrote the book: as more foreigners come to visit it, whether for business or for pleasure, it`s increasingly important to know what makes the city tick," Dave told reporters.

He feels most books about India written by Westerners document an obligatory personal journey.

"At first they hate India, but then they learn to love it. At first they`re overwhelmed by the chaos, but then the soul of the people shines through. At first they`re horrified by the poverty, but then they find spirituality in every speck of dirt.

"Many people have talked about Delhi`s problems. I like to focus on the positive side of things: the fact that Delhi, in the face of all its challenges, is still essentially peaceful and prosperous. If you look at history, you find that all of the world`s big cities had periods of great problems -- including New York, London, and Singapore. They`ve all

overcome those problems, and I know that Delhi will, too."

According to Prager, every traveller should know three Hindi words ? `chalo`, `theek hai` and `bhaiya`.

The couple’s trajectory in Delhi was different.

"We loved it instantly and intensively, every bit of it, as frightening and overwhelming and incomprehensible as it was."

"But the adventure we seek is not mountain climbing or jungle

safari -- It`s things like riding in an autorickshaw or shopping in a spice market. In other words, we fly 20 hours and pay thousands of dollars to do what everyday Indians would consider chores. That`s just the expat mindset."

Ask about incidents which he and his wife can never forget and he quips, "I can recall 392 pages worth of them. That`s why I wrote the book! But when I think back, I remember our Holi celebration and our walks through the Old City. Most of all, though, I think about all the great food we ate. More than anything, our memories of Delhi revolve around food."

And his take on Delhi`s food and hygiene, "You can`t judge a book by its cover, and you can`t judge a restaurant by its tablecloth. In Delhi, every reward has an equal and opposite challenge necessary to redeem it: which means that sometimes the best food can be found in the not-so-best places."

Organised into 12 thematic chapters (like worklife, transportation, and food), "Delirious Delhi", published by HarperCollins, is perfect for expats and locals alike: it helps newcomers orient themselves to this intense and amazing city, and it lets veterans see it through eyes that have never seen anything like it before.

'Hira Mandi' By Claudine Le Toumeur d'lson: Life in Lahore's 'Dirt Bowl'

New Delhi: (IANS) Hira Mandi, the traditional red light quarter of Lahore, lives in the popular mindscape through its stories of longing, loss and 'mujras' after the Pakistan government clamped down on prostitution in the 1970s, says noted French writer Claudine Le Tourneur d'lson.

Her fictional biography, 'Hira Mandi', based on the life story of Iqbal Husain, the son of a Hira Mandi courtesan, has connected to the English-speaking world with its first-ever translation by the capital-based Roli Books.

The novel, originally written in French in 2006, went on sale in India this week after an informal launch at the Alliance Francaise in the capital Monday. It will debut in Pakistan at the Karachi Literature Festival starting Saturday.

Claudine describes the book "as her love affair with the people of Hira Mandi, with whom she had spent weeks in Lahore as if she was a part of them".

"The book has been inspired by Iqbal Hussain, son of a Hira Mandi prostitute, whom I had met in 1988. Iqbal is an artist - perhaps the only one of his kind - and a restaurateur. He owns an eatery, Cuckoo's Den, in Hira Mandi where he serves traditional Lahori food," Claudine told IANS here.

Iqbal is a misfit of an artist in Pakistan, where "even talking about prostitutes is a taboo", the writer said.

"Iqbal is not very comfortable among people though he has been drawing Lahore and the world to Hira Mandi with his food," Claudine said. Cuckoo's Den is a mandatory stopover for tourists in Lahore.

Iqbal uses the dancing girls of Hira Mandi as models for his impressionistic paintings "of figures and landscapes without expressions of sex", the writer said.

"In his leisure, Iqbal spends his time helping the dancing girls. He is very human... Iqbal says, 'I am a man before a Muslim,'" Claudine recalled.

Iqbal in Claudine's novel is the hero Shanwaz Nadeem, who narrates his life story in first person.

Shanwaz's earliest memories of Hira Mandi are of his beautiful 20-year-old mother Naseem, who lives in her Mughal-style "haveli" with her aunts, cousins and her five-year-old son in the narrow crowded bylanes in the old walled city of Lahore.

Naseem's quarters are partitioned and Shanwaz wakes up every night to the "cries, moans and sighs of his mother in the bedroom on the other side".

Shanwaz's life charts Pakistan's turbulent history from partition to the Bhutto years, Zia-ul Haq's repressive regime, fundamentalist violence and the years of "The Satanic Verses".

Hira Mandi gradually disintegrates around Shanwaz, leaving him with memories of its once-forbidden grandeur - and unrequited desires - amid aging courtesans and confused novices.

"The residents of Hira Mandi had hoped that the 'Bhuttos' would bring in democracy and free them of repression and blind police atrocities...But Benazir Bhutto had failed to do much for women. I suppose they were disappointed in the end..." the writer said.

The Hira Mandi of the courtesans does not exist any more.

"The dancing girls (the prettier ones) have either moved to Dubai where the business is good while the others are spread across hotels in Lahore," Claudine said.

Segregated as a red light area during the British Raj for "the benefit of the soldiers" in the old Anarkali Bazar overlooking the Badshahi mosque, Hira Mandi was known for its "refined courtesans with impeccable manners, accomplished in performing arts, music and traditional gastronomy".

However, the tradition of dancing girls in the old Lahore city - a walled settlement - dates back to the reign of emperor Akbar whose son, prince Salim, once fell in love with Anarkali, a dancing girl from Lahore.