ASU in India: Day 1: Delhi

Sara E. McNeil, left, Shenetta Payne, Kalee Haywood and Kate Zibluk don Muslim robes as they prepare to visit the Jama Masjid or Friday Mosque in Delhi, India, Tuesday, May 17, 2011.

Chaos.

With 17 million people crammed into the space of a middle-sized American city, it's just impossible to manage. All you can do is sort of keep it afloat. Sort of.

From the moment we stepped out of the Delhi Airport in the 96-degree heat at 1 a.m. Tuesday, the chaos was impossible to escape. Over a hundred taxi drivers, rickshaw drivers, limo drivers and assorted others brayed and hawked for attention to take departing passengers to their destinations.

Even at that hour, the roads were full. Our voluble tour guide, Saurav (Sam) Somani, explained that there are no rules to driving in Delhi, and "all you need are a horn, a a good brake and a sense of humor." He meant it. Little three-wheeled Tata taxis swirl on either side of the road, shared by everything from Rolls Royces to oxcarts to loose cows and donkeys. They pass on the left. Or the right. There are few stoplights.

A street scene outside the Jama Masjid, or Friday Mosque in Delhi, India in Delhi, India,

Tuesday, May 17, 2011.

Somehow, we got to our small hotel in a safe neighborhood, guarded by a police checkpoint a few blocks away.

It's not that Delhi is particularly dangerous. It's just that the caste system keeps the untouchables with few options, and many become pickpockets and petty criminals. The beggars and the impoverished slum dwellers, some who live in garbage dumps and pick food and reusable items from the litter, have few options.

A sweeper cleans cleans the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, whose ashes were scattered on that same spot in 1948.

A Muslim woman worships at the Jama Majid, the Friday mosque.

A sweeper helps a tourist at Humayan's Tomb. Built in the early 1600s, the massive park is a model for the Taj Mahal.

Above them are the low-level laborers, rickshaw drivers, haulers, delivery people, and lavatory attendants. And there are entrepreneurs selling everything from food to clothes to electrical supplies on seemingly every street corner.

But there is quiet amid the din. And history. India has 5,000 years of civilization, and it served as a crossroad of the Silk Road that connected China to Europe. It has been influenced by Buddha, Alexander the Great, Mohammed and Queen Victoria of Great Britain.

A sweeper cleans the square near the old Red Fort, a 17th Century Muslim fortress and palace, in Delhi.

The Moslem Moguls, rulers in the middle ages through the 19th century, left the most famous monuments, from the Taj Mahal to the Qutab Minar, a tower more than 1,200 feet tall, built in 1199, when European structures a quarter the height were considered towers.

We spent the day visiting monuments and looking at the city and its people. We then took a Hindi lesson and visited the city's entertainment district and had dinner on embassy row, near the 1960s style U.S. embassy.

And tomorrow, Agra and the Taj Mahal.