My Travels with Tintin – India

I only have a single Tintin album in Hindi, “तिब्बत टिनटिन में” (Tintin in Tibet), but really, it’s the only one I need. Translated by Puneet Gupta this lovely softcover edition was published in 2013 by Om Books International. It is roughly the standard album size at 37.6 x 22.4 cm.

While Tintin’s adventures have been available in one of India’s major languages, Bengali, since 1975, it was only in 2011 that editions began to be translated into India’s “official” language of Hindi. Given that I was travelling to Delhi though, there was no real question as to which version I’d prefer.

There was also no real question as to which album was top of my list either – Tintin in Tibet. My second choice would have been Cigars of the Pharaoh since Tintin does travel to India after his escape from Arabia – and if I ever have the chance to go back to India (or Bangladesh) I might just seek out that album in Bengali. But in Tintin in Tibet, our hero actually travels to New Delhi on his way to Katmandu, stopping to check out the Red Fort and Qutub Minar, so my choice was clear.

Luckily, this was also one the easiest Tintin albums I’ve ever been able to get my hands on in country. It was literally just handed to me by my good friend Rahul, who was living in Delhi at the time. I told him what I was looking for, he went online and it was in my hands more or less the moment I stepped off the plane. I still remember flipping to the panel where Tintin and Captain Haddock disembark the L-749 Constellation upon arrival and seeing the caption “And two days later, in New Delhi…” written in Hindi at the top. It brought a huge smile to my face. I felt like I was walking in Tintin’s footsteps!

It’s nice to have friends in all sorts of places.

My trip to India:

My trip to India, from February 6 to 14, 2019 was a business trip, so I was flying solo, no family. I think that’s okay because honestly, India can be a bit overpowering and I don’t think it’s for everyone.

Luckily I was there to attend Petrotech 2019, a global oil and gas trade show that was being held from February 10-12 (Sunday to Tuesday). I won’t really dwell on that part of it. It was a work event, so work took up most of my time and energy (as it should). Overall I think we had a productive time, and I got to hear Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak at the opening address – and I was so close I could’ve thrown a baseball and hit him… not that that would’ve been a good idea.

However what really stands out in my mind is what else we did. As I mentioned, at the time my good friend Rahul was living in New Delhi, so it was super handy to have someone knowledgeable to show me around. Since the conference didn’t start until Sunday, I flew in late Wednesday night, had meetings on Thursday, but was then able to take Friday and Saturday as personal time – so I had to cram a lot into a very short period.

Right off the bat we headed out to Agrasen Ki Baoli Stepwell. It’s a huge historical stepwell right in the middle of New Delhi. If you don’t know what a stepwell is (and I didn’t), it’s basically exactly what it sounds like… a well that you go down a bunch of steps… a LOT of steps. That description doesn’t really do justice to what I saw. It’s a rectangular pit, 15 metres wide and 60 metres in length. It’s three levels deep, with these amazing stone arches lining the sides, and you have to walk down 108 stone steps to get to the water at the bottom. The Canadian in me was also a bit shocked by the general disregard for safety. There’s no fence around the edge of this thing. One wrong step and it’s a long fall and a short splash. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to take a picture, but as I said, I’d just arrived and didn’t think I’d be “seeing stuff” quite that quickly. I should’ve known better… Delhi just kind of jumps out at you.

That evening Rahul organized a bicycle rickshaw tour of the Old Delhi area. It’s a crowded warren of twisting streets and alleys, all full of humanity. I’ve been in plenty of crowded places in Asia… Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul and others are full of people as well… but I don’t think I’ve ever been confronted with quite the same crush of the unwashed masses as in New Delhi. I have no idea how those drivers made it through those narrow alleys, but they did. We even had a chance to get out and walk around a bit… check out the stalls and sample the street food (even though I wasn’t brave enough to try). We were then able to climb up some stairs and take in a roof-top view of the surrounding area – including the famed Red Fort in the distance. It was crowded and chaotic, but with the sun just beginning to set and everything bathed in a kind of a rusty red glow, it was actually a bit surreal. Luckily our rickshaw was still waiting to take us back to our starting point – which is a good thing because I’m not sure I would’ve been able to find my way out if left to my own devices. However, after having lived in a similarly complex Asian city like Seoul, I know you can get a feel for a place, and eventually the familiarity tunes out a lot of the sensory noise. These guys probably ride those rickshaws through there 10 times a day everyday, so I wasn’t worried.

I did have gain a new appreciation for the scene from Tintin in Tibet where Captain Haddock gets chased through the streets of Delhi by a sacred cow though.

The most monumental part of the trip, of course, was the Saturday visit to the Taj Mahal. I’ve been to Angkor Wat, I’ve seen the Great Wall of China, the Parthenon in Athens, and the Roman Colosseum and this was right up there as one of the wonders of the world. It’s amazing, and we could not have had a better day to view it. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky so the bright white stone was really set off against a clear blue sky. I don’t think I’d really anticipated the sheer clarity of the sky. After spending time in New Delhi, you kind of come to accept the haze of pollution as being relatively normal (although it was better after it rained). Of course the Taj Mahal is in Agra, but given the amount of thick black smoke pouring out of the various huts and what not we drove by in the bus on our way there, it still came as a surprise.

According to Wikipedia, the Taj Mahal is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, India. I think most people know that it was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, to house the tomb of his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal – and maybe that it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself. It’s a classic love story. But what I didn’t know what just how huge the place is. It’s the centrepiece of an entire (17-hectare) complex. So besides the mausoleum there’s also a mosque, a giant guest house, and amazing gardens, all inside the walls. We spent the whole day in Agra and it was amazing.

After the conference ended on Tuesday afternoon, we were off to Mumbai for some more business meetings. I won’t bore you with that, but it was… interesting… to stay at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. For those of you who don’t know, almost exactly 10 years earlier it was the primary site of what is called the 26/11 attacks. On November 26, 2008 a group of Lashkar-e-Taiba militants from Pakistan infiltrated the area and perpetrated coordinated terror strikes in the hotel, at the nearby Leopold Cafe, Chabad House and the Oberoi Trident Hotel. 166 people died. Now, of course, after 10 years almost all traces of the attack had been erased. The hotel has been extensively remodelled, so it no longer looks the same, and the giant iron gate and armed guards out front of the main entrance are certainly new additions. However they still retain some of the original walls… and you can still see the bullet holes. We also had dinner at the Leopold Cafe (just down the street and around the corner from the hotel). The food was good, but looking up and seeing the bullet holes still in the some of the walls made the experience quite humbling. It wasn’t eerie, the place was cramped and noisy like any good cafe should be… but knowing that on a night just like that something terrible happened… well it makes you think.

I didn’t have any real personal time in Mumbai, but I could tell instantly that it is a very different city than New Delhi. The two cities really had much the same contrasting economic vs. government-centric vibe that I’ve felt between Shanghai and Beijing, or Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. But what struck me the most about Mumbai was its duality. On our way to meetings we drove by and saw some pretty horrid slums… but we also drove by Antilia, a stunning 27-story private skyscraper on Altamount Road, featuring amenities like three helipads, a 50-seat theater, multiple pools, a snow room, and a six-story car garage… all part of the private residence of the Indian billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani and his family. I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite that level of wealth discrepancy in such a small geographic area. It left a mark.

Given the great view I had of it from my hotel room, I was also quite fascinated by the Gateway of India arch-monument. I looked it up. It was built to commemorate the landing of King George V – the first British Monarch to visit India – in December 1911. Of course, since he was there for his coronation as the Emperor of India, you’d like to think it was worth making the trip. Of course everyone knows about the complicated intertwined history between Britain and India, but after seeing so many historical Indian monuments, it was odd to see such a striking remnant of the British colonial period up close and personal.

It was a short business trip but it left a lasting impression on me. It also made me realize how little I know about such a vast and complex country. I hope I have a chance to go back to “discover India” again.