Treasure Hunt

Sunday March 2, 2008 11:39 p.m.
Paharganj, Delhi

Winding down another long day, but this was the most productive one yet, at least from a product-sourcing angle. Very slow waking up today—the beds here in room 306 at the 1.5 star Hotel Shelton have been so uncomfortable that we resolved to move hotels if they didn’t either move us or our mattresses today. (They opted for the mattresses, as it turned out; fine by me. Sara assures me they are an upgrade.) We’ve been working super-late on the film/editing project anyway so the candles are burning at all ends; by the time I lie down at 1 or 2 a.m., I’m tired enough to sleep on pavement. Not for long though; with all the tossing and turning I’ve still been doing, the rest is pretty low-qual, and we are now officially feeling it.

Still, even with the increasingly woozy head spawned by extended poor rest and lingering jet-frag, I got some very good work done today: spent all day with Anuj, my friend from last year when I bought a great little collection of vintage/antique furniture, altars and temples etc. from him. Total sweetheart, it was really nice to reconnect together.

We got to his warehouse by catching the snazzy new-ish Delhi Metro to the end of the line at the Ring road, then haggled for too long with the local rickshaw wallahs. They kept up a united front; we finally settled for paying almost twice what my friend Bunty said we should from that point, but at some point fighting over the extra 40 or 50 rupees (roughly a dollar) loses its luster (and its financial payoff on the ‘time is money’ scale).

Along the way, I shot the below photo from our motor-rickshaw. What you don’t see is the third child riding on Mom’s lap on the other side of the bike—5 bodies in all, not a particularly unusual number, amazingly enough. The scene of an entire family riding, helmet-free, through the utter free-for-all of Indian city traffic, is so common as to raise not an eyebrow of anyone who has been here longer than a week. Though axiomatic that life is cheap on the streets of India, still millions pony up and place their bets every day, risking all for a ride across town. Though I’ve seen the after-effects—and boy, I’ve never seen such savagely crumpled cars and buses as the ones that litter India’s roadsides and under-bridge riverbeds like so many rusting corpses—I remain stupefied as to how few accidents I’ve ever personally witnessed. It’s all in the flow, I guess…

After our arrival, we shared some hellos and introductions, some catching up and masala chai, and then I began scouring Anuj’s warehouse in search of inspiring antique altars, temples and random small furniture pieces. And his stash did not disappoint. It took me about 7 hours to treasure-hunt through his place from roof to basement, stacked full with dusty relics in various states of repair, or lack thereof. I ended up refraining from some amazing pieces: too big or too expensive, yet still difficult to just say ‘no’ to. But I pushed my budgetary envelope on a few pieces also, because they were simply too gorgeous to pass up. And gathered up a sweet collection of small one-of-a-kind pieces that I think will go fast once they arrive home—so unique, so useful and so able to light up a room with their particular je ne c’est quoi.

Anuj is a straightforward, direct negotiator—a relative rarity here in my experience. He starts at a real wholesale price, and we cut out loads of the back-and-forth posturing that typifies many bargaining sessions. As he put it today as I was feeling him out for pricing flexibility, he likes to just go right to the best price he can offer—if someone tries to beat him up a bunch on the price, he knows that next time, and he starts higher in order to end up where he needs to be. Instead, he directly offers me prices that are quite fair for what he possesses, because he knows I need some room to work too, or we both suffer. He’s a good work partner that way.

After eating only two small samosas all day (during my four minute lunch hour) I still had energy by the time we splurged on a 300 rupee car home in the gathering darkness—a well-deserved eight dollar luxury after some good productive picking and deal-making. Besides, Sara wasn’t feeling too well, and although she snuck in a couple of catnaps during the day (some on various pieces of furniture, some while sitting on stools with camcorder in lap) she basically was on and working for the duration, trooper that she is. So I figured a little extra comfort was in order.

Poor Sara, my dedicated producer, has been at this first web episode for almost a week, staying up until 4:30 a.m. last night working—and then getting up at dawn to do a little more—and yet she’s already had to totally re-do the entire editing process 3 times, with all of the power and electronics issues—what a drag. Some day (‘soon!’ he prayed fervently, for both their sakes) she’ll finish it, and we’ll hopefully have ironed out a successful tactical approach that will allow us to have some fun sharing India’s daily uber-grind on the inter-webs. As I’ve already gotten quite used to hearing: “tomorrow.”