Chuck the JD: Delhi: Rickrolling the Rodeo

We didn’t really hit Delhi too hard. Mostly, this was a city for regrouping and absorbing. I guess I have some regrets on this, because Delhi definitely has some stuff to see, but at the same time, we’d already seen our share of forts, and taking this time to regroup definitely improved the quality of the trip as a whole.

Our first day in Delhi was just a day to crash. We arrived at about noon on the overnighter from Jodhpur, showed up at our hotel, and just slept until around dinner time. A week of walking around every day, sleeping every other night on the train, and then closing things with an all-day adventure in Jodhpur had taken its toll. It was at this point that I noticed my hair was falling out and my snot was gray, and Pete noticed that he had soot in his earwax. Perhaps a week in Rajasthan is approaching maximum western tolerance.

For dinner, we headed to a sort of fancy strip mall called Connaught Place. There, we gravitated to the KFC for food, then followed things up with a bar called "Rodeo," recommended by Fodor’s as trying way too hard to be American western-themed. The payoff was immense. Where to begin with this place? The employees were all in ridiculous cowboy costumes. The bar stools were saddles. Their tap wasn’t properly calibrated, resulting in mostly head on the beer. Their solution to that was to devote a bartender to pouring and spooning out head. This reminded me of the U of C’s dive, the Falcon Inn, where the bartender was perpetually drunk and, rather than give you a decent pour, would just give you two glasses of half head. Rodeo eventually had two Koreans singing karaoke (they were really good, actually), but when we arrived, they were playing the most spectacular 80s mix ever. Safety Dance, Just an Illusion, 867-5309, the works. And Never Gonna Give You Up.

For those unfamiliar, the music video to Never Gonna Give You Up is basically the worst major music video ever. Rick Astley can sing, but his dancing is just awful and the video is completely derivative. A solid internet meme is to trick someone into watching that music video. This is called "rickrolling." As in "I just rickrolled Phil. Pwnd." At its heart this consists of just sending someone a Youtube link and saying "you’ve gotta watch this!" but usually you try for something more elaborate than that. You can create a video that starts legitimately, then transitions to Rick Astley, for example. Or you can be like the Cartoon Network and rickroll the Macy’s Day Parade. The next time you’re at a juke box, scroll to Rick Astley and see if they’ve got it. Anyway, the beauty here was Rodeo had rickrolled itself.

When we got back to Delhi, we really only checked out two things. First, the Indian Rail museum, which we found fitting considering how much time we’d just spent on trains. After that, though, we went to Delhi’s Baha’i Temple. Baha’i is a religion that more or less combines all religions into one set of beliefs. They had a brief reading of scriptures while we were there, for example, and read from Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic texts. They are monotheistic, at least, so I don’t know how Hinduism would jive with that (or how any of these religions would jive with each other, really), but the upshot is that they’re just a really peaceful religion. Ultimately, they’re probably about as weird as Scientology, but the difference is that the Baha’is aren’t suing or fleecing anyone. Rather, they just build really awesome temples and invite anyone to come. And their celebrity corps is more two-bit, including Dwight Schrute, a shortstop for the Rangers, and a guy who played a recurring terrorist on 24.

The Baha’i have a temple on each continent, broadly speaking. The one in North America is actually in Wilmette, north of Chicago. Since it’s easily accessible off the Purple Line, I spent a few evenings during the Chicago Years hanging out there. It’s really well-maintained and just super peaceful. The inside features incredible acoustics, and is also very calming. The Delhi Temple may not be as calm, as it was actually quite crowded, but the building itself is just stunning. It’s shaped like a giant lotus flower in a pond, with enormous grounds around it. This was the only thing we saw in Delhi with that much open space. Everything else was wall-to-wall. And the interior, with silence, no photography, and restricted entry, kept the Indians from ruining it, too (note: whenever a tourist trap turned into a shitshow, it was always due to Indian tourists. Westerners have respect for their surroundings). If you’re ever in Delhi, do not miss this.