I promised way back when we were on our India trip that I'd tell you about our day on Connaught Place (we are back from India but I feel compelled to finish off the journal given it's been so popular!).
Connaught Place is officially called Rajiv Chowk (after Indira's son. Indira gets naming rights on the outer circle too), but everyone just calls it Connaught Place, or CP. It is a series of concentric circular roads lined with Victorian buildings and is a business area of Delhi. It also has a lot of shops, restaurants etc. It also has a lot of touts, scammers, etc.
We first noticed people were friendly when we were walking down the road from where we were staying, Paharganj, to CP. It would have been a couple of kilometres, and we were grateful to be walking instead of in a narrow cramped plane seat, or cooling our heels in a transit lounge.
Most of the way we were importuned by rickshawwallahs wanting us to take an autorickshaw like normal people rather than take our chances with the broken up pavements, puddles of mud-and-god-knows-what-else, hawkers and cows. They were persistent. Finally, the most recent one screeched to a halt next to us and said "You are staying at my brother's hotel! I am going to tourist office! I take you there! No charge!". We politely declined (although it did occur to me to ask him "so, which hotel is your brother's hotel?" but thought that would be overly suspicious. He insisted. We politely declined again. We were really happy to be walking after a long plane trip etc. He acted pained and upset that we obviously didn't trust him. I assumed the "hands folded in respectful namaste" position, with smiles, and head wobbles, along with repeated assertions that he was really a very generous man and we were very grateful for his kind offer, but we were really just enjoying the walk. It took about 5 more minutes of this to dislodge him. Turns out he was one of the less persistent ones! We were approached by no fewer than 3 more friendly people who after lengthy conversation also offered to take us to the tourist office. Then there were the 20 or so who eschewed the lengthy conversation and cut right to the chase, offering to take us to the tourist office.
But the class act was Sam. More on him in the next installment.
