Old Delhi

インドスパイス魔女修行 その８
帰国報告
その1 India! India!
その2 Kochi Day 1
その3 Kochi Day 2
その4 Kochi Day 3
その5 Kochi Day 4
その6 Kochi Day 5
その７ Kochi to Delhi

その町は、人も言葉も信じるものも、色となって溢れだし、ひしめきあい、絡み合っていた。
洪水のなかを必死で泳ごうとするように、息をするのもやっとだった。

自分たちがどうしても観光客なんだという事実は消えないし、そういう目で見られるのは仕方がない。オールドデリーでは、生と死が剥き出しで路上に転がっていた。

南インドと北インドでは、民族が違うから顔つきが違う。南のドラヴィダ人は丸顔で、北のインド・アーリア人はスッと鼻筋の通った西洋寄りの顔。
コーチンからオールドデリーまでは約2490㎞。日本では北海道と沖縄の離れぐあいか。
コーチンの海風の湿度と混ざった暑さとは違い、デリーは暑いけれど湿度が少ないせいかあまり汗が出ない。その分街の埃っぽさと乾燥具合は格別で、私はスカーフで顔を覆うようにして暑さと埃をしのいだ。そうしないと息ができなかった。

牛乳は濃く甘く、蠅がわんわんと足元で飛び交う中、炎天下の屋台で飲むチャイは絶品だった。でも、蠅なんて気にならなかった。それよりもタイムスリップしてしまったかのような風景に心を奪われた。

英語すら聞こえて来ないような場所で、何かの神を一心不乱に拝む老婆たちがいた。初めて見る不思議な神の像に惹かれたが、何か鳥肌が立つような空気感があった。
カメラを出すことはタブーだと肌で感じ、そっとスカーフでレンズを隠して傍を通った。
線香の煙や屋台で売られる食べものの匂い、ミルクや花のすえた匂い。動物の血なのか黒っぽい液体が彫像の周りにこびりついている。影だったのかもしれないけれど、なんだか異様な場所だった。そこでは私は異物だった。

北インドのパワーは凄かった。
生きること、がそこにあった。
街は全然きれいではないし、喉を火傷しそうな熱風や埃や、人の波。今の日本の街にはもう無い、濃い闇の部分。私は不思議と心地良さすら感じた。

つづく。

  
Spice Witch Training in India Part 8
Coming home
Part1 India! India!
Part2 Kochi Day 1

Part3 Kochi Day 2
Part4 Kochi Day 3

Part5 Kochi Day 4
Part6 Kochi Day 5
Part7 Kochi to Delhi

The city was the place where people. languages, and what they believe had colors and those were overflowing and jamming, and inter-winded each other.
It was as if we were trying to swim in a flood, we couldn't breath properly.

We were "foreigners" and that was the fact. Everyone looked at us as tourists. In the city of Old Delhi, there were unconcealed life and death on the street.

Ethnic groups are different in South and North India, so the faces of the people are different. Dravidian South Indians have roundish faces. Indo-Aryan North Indians have shapely noses like European faces.
From Kochi to Delhi is about 1547 miles. I guess it's around the same from Hokkaido (the northernmost prefecture) to Okinawa (the southernmost prefecture) in Japan.
Kochi's sea breeze carried humidity and heat, but in Delhi, it's hot but it's dry. So we didn't sweat much. However the city was so dusty and dry that I had to cover up my face with my scarf to avoid heat and dust. Otherwise I couldn't breath. 

Milk was dense and sweet. A cup of chai from the stall was excellent. We drunk our chai under the scorching sunshine and a cloud of flies was dancing around our feet. But I couldn't care about the flies at all. I was more attracted by the the look of the town which took me back in time.

There was a place where I couldn't even hear any English, there were old ladies who were praying very hard to some gods. The god was something I had never seen before and I was very curious, but there was something in the air which made my skin bubble.
I felt a special air through my skin. I shouldn't take any picture here, so I hid my camera lens with my scarf when I walked by the god's place so I wouldn't disturb anyone. 
The smell of incenses, smoke, some kind of food sold at the stalls, milk and the flower smell which went sour. Black liquid, looked like animal blood, stuck on the statues of the gods. Those blackness might had been shadow, but the place wasn't ordinary. And I was a foreign body.   

The power of North India was tremendous.
A will to live was there.
The town wasn't clean at all and there were the heat wind which burn your throat, dust and a crowd of people. There was a deep dark part which we lost in Japanese town nowadays. I strangely felt comfortable there.

To be continued...