From Shopping in Delhi to Spas in Ananda by Caroline Phillips
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I’m standing beside a sacred cow and a businessman wearing a ‘Make Poverty History’ rubber band, searching retail nirvana in downtown Delhi.
A man squats on the pavement, being shaved. Nearby someone sleeps on a string bed. The smell of bidees fill the air and the sound of hawking, spitting and the swish of a sweeper’s broom mingle with a Hindi lovesong wailing from a Transistor radio.
Food isn’t served at Delhi dinner parties until around midnight - so no self-respecting Delhi-ite surfaces before 11am. Consequently, boutiques and markets open only in the searing sun. Then you sit bumper-to-bottom with buses, trucks, monkeys, skinny dogs, Porsches and hand-pulled carts - your driver honking his horn with unremitting abandon. “Yes madam,” he says. “Big traffic.”
A mutilated beggar crosses the road on his knees. Another with a sawn-off arm holds out his begging hand. School-age vendors knock at your car windows, offering beseeching looks, pirated copies of Harry Potter and chickpeas. And families of four judder past, all on one motorbike - with their shopping and one baby on the mother’s lap, a baby perched on the father’s legs, and only the driver wearing a helmet.
Great Gatsby Phase
Once shopping was confined to Old Delhi, Connaught Place and Chandi Chowk. Now the rapid growth of this dauntingly big city, the emerging middle class and a country in its Great Gatsby phase, have spawned fashionable shops in the suburbs. Retail therapy must be approached with military precision: no matter where you drive, every journey takes, “forty five minutes, madam.’
You can hire a battered yellow and black Ambassador - and, with luck, the driver may agree to use the meter. Or take an auto-rickshaw, and savour the urban equivalent of white water rafting over Niagara Falls. But unless you seek a hitchhiking-across-the-country-blindfolded experience, you should hire an air-conditioned car with an English-speaking driver. “Madam,” he will ask, “what is your good name and your country?”
The Goods
You can have jewellery made up, returning to England laden with diamond bracelets. Or buy classical Indian instruments - including the cheapest of cheap bamboo flutes. There are glittering gold and silver braid and tinsel garlands for weddings. Miles of glass bangles in colours to match every sari. Shot silk, hand spun cotton, the ubiquitous pashmina, kitsch t-shirts embellished with Indian gods, paintings, and kurta pyjamas that you’ll never wear.
There are bronze gods aplenty for sale - elephant -headed Ganesh, monkey-faced Hanuman, multiple-armed Siva. Unidentifiable spices in pungent mounds of orange, red and star shapes. Camel and buffalo-hide slippers that need not so much breaking -in as marathon perseverance. Brass and copperware trays, plates, ashtrays and cups. Seashell necklaces, anklets, sequined bedspreads and saree handbags. You can wave a magazine photo and get furniture copied in rosewood - or show another photo and get clothes copied in silk.
Rayon masquerades as silk, polyester as pashmina, all white metal is silver and there are probably as many scams as there are gemstones. To tell if a carpet is really silk, scrape it with a knife and burn the fluff. Real silk shrivels away. Even producing a knife is said to make a vendor demur, much as it does in Peckham.
Kitne ka Hain?
I go to the bank to change some money, a tedious and fruitless task. First it’s the wrong bank, then it’s lunchtime, then there’s no foreign cash. Kitne ka hain? you ask in the shops. (Hindi for, ‘How much does this cost?’) The answer is you haggle. Even in shops displaying ‘Fixed Price’ notices.
For less than a pound we become walking works of art, with delicate ‘ankle socks’ and ‘gloves’ of henna painted on our feet and hands. Hijras, erstwhile men with deep voices and saris, gather outside the temple to watch. As we leave, we’re followed by all the children of the subcontinent: “Please auntie, money-sweets.”
People don’t go to India for designer seconds. And yet Sarojini Nagar, a souk-like market with clothes-covered walls and floors, lures foreigners, particularly Russians. ‘Export Surplus. All Items Rs 35’ (less than GBP 1) reads one sign. They sell Rolo Ralphe Lauren (sic), Kevin Clein (sic), Westernised Indian clothing and genuine Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, H&M, Zara and Monsoon.
Contrastingly, Javed Abdulla (by appointment only) operates elegantly from his private apartment selling Kashmiri wares to Allegra Hicks and interior decorators John Stefanides and Annabel Elliot (that Camilla’s sister.) Copies of old Turkish ‘susani’ textiles, parchment lampshades, vegetable dye rugs, cushions with handstitched Westernised silk embroidery and chain stitch carpets - from GBP 30 for cushion covers to GBP 150 for rugs.
We shop midst the 1930s colonnades of Connaught Place, near mosques, tower blocks, the 19th century Red Fort, the brick and plaster astronomical instruments of the Jantar Mantar observatory and concrete flyovers with people living under them. There are broken faces with dead eyes, bullying police, women dressed for modesty, saffron robed saddhus, important men with money and kids in jeans.
During lunch, parrots and eagles soar overhead and a crow flies past, dropping a rat. After eating dahl, roti, rice, raita and pulao, we’re given a questionnaire: ‘Which dish did you not like? What is the date of your wedding anniversary?’
Extreme Relaxation
India offers extreme shopping...but it’s balanced by extreme relaxation. With this I leave behind my daughter and shopping frenzy for spiritual succour and pampering at one of the world’s premium health spas, Ananda- in the Himalayas. It’s a four-ish hour train ride to Hardiwar - during which my companion, the Brunette, and I are served a vegetable cutlet breakfast in sub Arctic air-conditioning - then a one hour car journey. On the drive we see a holy man wearing no clothes come out of the forest and sit on his haunches; and a bull with rigor mortis and feet in the air lying on the pavement. ‘After Whisky, Driving Risky,’ reads a sign.
In the foothills of the Himalayas, Ananda is on the Maharaja of Tehri-Garhwal’s estate. We arrive at the 1910 Viceregal Palace with its Art Deco interior and library housing the Maharaja’s rare books. ”Namaskar m’aam,” smiles a sari-beclad lady, uttering the greeting with supplicatory hands. She gives us prayer bead necklaces. Delhi shopping memories disappear in a puff of commercial spirituality. A musician sits on the floor playing his violin. We sip fresh ginger and lime juice. Then it’s off at the speed of a holy cow to the modern guest residence in an electric, fume- free buggy.
The silence is deafening after the constant clamour of Delhi. No throngs of jostling people. Just guests wandering around wearing white pyjamas, beatific expressions and large diamond rings. In our room we discover not so much a bathroom as a personal ashram heady with the scent of burning essences, sunken bath soon-to-be filled with rose petals and oversized window with views over the valley, hundreds of acres of forest and hills and the holy town of Rishikesh on the Ganges.
Health and Harmony
Ananda focuses on Yoga and Ayurvedic treatments dedicated to spiritual awakening, physical rejuvenation and anti-ageing. Ayurveda is a system of holistic medicine in which imbalances in the main bio energies of the body (‘doshas’ called Vata, Pitta and Kapha) are corrected to achieve health and harmony. I meet physician Dr Thampa for an Ayurvedic consultation.
His office is in the 21,000 square foot spa complex, midst acres of marble, tinkling fountains, fresh marigold necklaces on elephant god statues and petals strewn in bowls. Dr Thampa determines my constitution by birth time, body structure, character and pulse. “Music, travelling or clothes you like best?” He asks, wearing a korta and feeling my pulses. He answers for me. It’s obvious. That’s because I’m Pitta, (“Kind-hearted, intelligent and easily angered,” he says) with a pulse like a “jumping frog”. He diagnoses my Dosha imbalances, offering suggestions for diet, yoga, herbal medication, (which tastes like melted road and miraculously clears my sinuses) massage, meditation and release of toxins by Panchakarma (purification treatments.)
My food must be suitable for my Ayurvedic body type and combine six ‘forces’ - sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. For my next meal I’m presented with an apple juice and rock salt cocktail followed by crepe with veg, a glass of warm water and banana brullee. Light, macrobiotic food. For the following meal, I personally elect to combine 316 ‘forces’ -with a breakfast of buckwheat Danish pastries, Indian breads and upmal: delicious semolina and mustard seeds, lentils, salt, curry leaves, water and milk. Pitta be damned.
Dr Thampa also prescribes an Abhyanga synchronised full body massage performed by two therapists on a “healing” wooden Ayurvedic therapy couch. What a prescription! It starts with a prayer, chanting and foot - caressing in hot water and ends with a head massage with herbal oil. Next day I’m prescribed a Choornaswedan - a vigorous massage with hot cloth poultices containing herbal powders. Said to cure everything from neurological disorders to sports injuries, the massages induce a state of physical relaxation and religious ecstasy.
Supple and Serene
A Californian who goes by the unlikely name of Gigi Pravda has been staying here for five months. She was taking 15 pills a day when she arrived, couldn’t walk, talk or sit. She was overweight, depressed and suffering from fibromyalgia. Dr Thampa did his thing with her. Now she has lost 15 kilos, stopped most of her medication, smiles and goes for 20 km hikes.
The Ananda package covers the use of hydrotherapy facilities; reliable electricity and salads washed in chlorinated water, a rarity in India; being treated like a Maharana; and 10 complementary daily spa activities. Activities include yoga to guided meditation, Pranayama sessions, hiking, Vedanta lectures (with titles like What is happiness? Who is God?) and cookery demonstrations. Chef Sumit Kumar stands midst bowls of star anis, cardamon and cinnamon bark teaching us how to make sublime Indian dishes - from Kashmiri rice to dahl with turmeric, cumin and crushed ginger.
Every day I’m inspired to rise early. I exercise my soul, soothe my spirit and become supple and serene. I do yoga in the swimming pool and on rush mats in the Viceregal Hall, with its oil paintings and chandeliers. I focus on simple Asana (postures), Mudras (gestures) and Pranayama (breathing): stretching, inhaling and anti-ageing by the second. I attempt the cobra and palm tree poses. I’m only really adept at the supine pose. But I’m excellent at shopping.
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