To the market!

Safety is not really a concern when it comes to Delhi's roads. It is not that people don't get hurt, it is that no one seems interested in taking further safety precautions. On the way to the market we saw a sign that read "Accident prone area - be careful"...I can only assume they were referring to all of Delhi...while the city is at it, they should make a sign saying: "Watch out for infants being held by mothers sitting side-sattle on the back of motorcycles". There are many surprising sights on the roads but the one below was a classic - the cell phone stuck in the helmet. (Of course, I can't really talk because I was only able to take this picture while on the road because we had 5 girls in one autorickshaw - comfortable for about 2-3 passengers, and I was sharing the drivers seat).

Once at the market, the unusually cloudy and "cool" weather transformed into a dounpour and all the shoppers ran to the nearest market stall, while all the stall workers tried to prevents their tarp awnings from collpsing by keeping the water from collecting by poking with long sticks. Amusing for us was that there were several victims of the sudden unloading of these tarps - the funniest of which resulted in a teenage girl with a white curti (shirt) getting completely dreched and the resulting fury of the mother at the very apologetic shopkeeper (while all the on-looking shopkeepers were giggling).

However, one hour later, everything had dried up and the shopkeepers who had packed-up for rain-mode spread out again. Here is one one of these very temporary stores created on this stone archway.

Also, one of the NGO elementary schools that serves local slums had a new saying of the day posted...I agree.

Ohhh, and exciting news in blog-land. I have just called a lap top repair place in Delhi (apparenly located in Asia's largest electronics market...), where the store owner said (in English!) that replacing the Dell laptop screen could be replaced in 1 hour! I know it is not fixed yet and I don't know if I am supposed to bargain over the price...but I can't help "We Are The Champions" from playing in my head. Good luck, me! (as my grandfather Roy might say :)