 |
The humbling immersion of ammonic insignificanceBy Moocher: Anna MathiesonI will begin with the smell of Delhi. The overwhelming, all-pervasive reek of open sewers, public urinals, masala mix, unidentifiable gutter sludge, sandalwood, exhaust fumes and the nostril-stinging steam rising from piles of rubbish knee deep on the streets. The fetid cloying stench of fifteen, sixteen, who really knows how many million bodies vying for a toe-hold in the cracked brick and broken streets. It is a smell you cannot avoid. But after it has become almost intolerable, within spitting distance of a street kid or stray dog, within coughing distance of the shanty building sites shrouded in billows of concrete dust, it vanishes. Within a few hours, Delhi stuns you into insensibility. |