Namaste

The first thing I noticed as we walked off our Emirates flight and into Indira Gandhi International Airport was the smell – it still smelled exactly like Delhi. This may sound like an obvious statement or an insult to India, but it’s neither. Delhi smells like humidity, slightly stale polluted air, and something unique that I’ve never been able to pin down. If it were ever bottled, it wouldn’t sell very well as a perfume but anyone who had ever walked into the blinding heat of this city would be able to identify it immediately.

That scent was one of the few things we recognized during our two-week stay. The hotel we stayed at and several of the restaurants we visited were familiar haunts but much has changed in the three years since we moved away.

Hubby had promised me back in May that he would take me to see the new Harry Potter film while we were in Delhi. We always loved going to the movies in Delhi because it’s inexpensive and there’s an intermission - an innovation I’ve only ever seen in India. During our first full weekend in Delhi, Hubby made good on his promise and we hopped into a taxi to a pedestrian mall about thirty minutes away.

We used to go to Saket every so often when we lived here so you can imagine our jaw dropping shock when we pulled up to a huge modern mall. We asked our taxi driver if this was the right place and he pointed to the sign in a rather insulted fashion. Gone were the uneven pavestones and outdoor bookseller who could always be counted on for inexpensive used books. In its place was a series of four two-storey malls that boasted at least two separate movie theatre complexes, a Hard Rock Café, great shops, and even underground parking. We were in shock.

Saket wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Construction was evident almost everywhere we turned. Our former local shops at Khan Market had also undergone a transformation: gone were the Bengali Sweet Shop and affordable stores, and in their place were dozens of restaurants and high-end shops. One of the few vendors I still recognized was the Soup Nazi and I was in such shock I completely forgot to visit and drive him crazy.

I don’t know why we thought things would be exactly as we left them. We’re not naïve – after all Toronto has changed more since I left than it did the entire time I grew up there. From the newly completed flyovers to the myriad of new faces at our old haunts it appeared that Delhi had moved on without us. Which is, I suppose, as it should be.