This weekend I volunteered my services as a passenger in a vehicle heading out on a furniture mission. The main objective was to help one woman, Suzanna, obtain a bed for herself and her husband. Of course, there were seven of us there, ready to assist if necessary. First, we headed to Mr. Gupta's carpentry workshop in Chattarpur, a distant suburb. Most of the furniture there was either made by his carpenters or lovingly polished and restored for sale. It was a happy place. Interestingly, there were two floors of furniture and then stairs to "the workshop" which turned out to be the roof, as we noticed when we looked up after leaving. 100+ degrees on a black roof? Mr. Gupta was quite a handsome, genteel man, though, despite owning this (literally) sweatshop. I discovered a new interest in furniture and asked him many questions. Daring woman that I am, I even got his business card, phone number and all.
Outside the workshop, of course, there was nothing but a lot filled with rubble and a bunch of stray dogs. But across the street were several beautiful new Hindu temples. The neighborhood is full of new temples and debris, crowds of people and gangs of stray dogs.
And one carpentry workshop and showroom.
But no bed yet. Susanna thought the carpenter's price was too high for a handmade teak sleigh bed. $1000? What, that's how many rupees? I thought it sounded pretty good, especially because his work looked lovely, but I wasn't buying. So on to the next stop - "Sharma Farms."
There are a lot of neighborhoods around Delhi that have the word "Farms" tagged on. I don't know whether these used to be actual farmland, or whether it was some sort of communistic development under Nehru or Indira Gandhi, or whether it is just a nostalgic term used for piles of dirt. Which is what the Sharma Farms area looked like. It was like Hwy 494 in the Twin Cities, only with the highway reduced to four narrow lanes and the car dealerships covered with wood and corrugated tin (but still open), lots of long scary driveways, and big areas of trash, construction debris, and lovely red dirt.
At first I thought Sharma Farms was Tara, because there was a VERY long driveway lined with (mostly living) trees. Then we pulled up to a bunch of wooden warehouses, no one in sight. But when we stopped (seven Americans with embassy plates? Woo-hoo) about 15 people came out of nowhere. They managed to round up most of us, and I tagged behind, but soon I started to wander (the story of my life) because I didn't want to buy anything and there was a lot of stuff in this place. And I started to sense ghosts around me . . .
There were relics of a feudalistic rural lifestyle all around, and the first thing I thought of was/were? the shoe, hair, and suitcase exhibits at the Holocaust Museum in DC. In these warehouses, there were sets of doors that had belonged to manors and looked medieval, giant urns, beautiful brass basins for bathing or who knows what strange activities, 
statues of deities, dressers, giant dining room tables with 25 chairs, giant glass lanterns, giant everything! This was not your Salvation Army showroom. These represented great wealth - I could just imagine the British forces arriving on horseback and burning down the manor but keeping the doors and the giant brass urns, or overturning the wagon and shooting the driver but keeping the giant wheels.
Who knows what fountains and gardens the statues once adorned? Or who had once sat in the upholstered throne that sat wrapped in plastic to protect it? Much of the household furniture was intricately painted with images of people, flowers, animals, and stories of the gods.
statues of deities, dressers, giant dining room tables with 25 chairs, giant glass lanterns, giant everything! This was not your Salvation Army showroom. These represented great wealth - I could just imagine the British forces arriving on horseback and burning down the manor but keeping the doors and the giant brass urns, or overturning the wagon and shooting the driver but keeping the giant wheels.
Who knows what fountains and gardens the statues once adorned? Or who had once sat in the upholstered throne that sat wrapped in plastic to protect it? Much of the household furniture was intricately painted with images of people, flowers, animals, and stories of the gods.What was especially sad was that it was all sitting together here in these huge warehouses, covered with dust and neglected. I wanted to make it all better - the stillness and sadness was overwhelming. It was like discovering a centuries-old graveyard hidden in a forest (of red dirt and trash piles and highways - some forest). And tears were falling down my face. No, that was sweat. It was 100 degrees outside and I was standing inside a warehouse without even a fan - I was sweating so much that I eventually had to leave the victimized furniture and go outside to sit listlessly on a bench and wait for my companions to complete their gluttonous, imperialistic "shopping" spree.
(It's no wonder that I don't have any friends.)
Finally they emerged - two people bargaining with one salesperson over a wooden jewelry box - finally bought it for 200 rupees. And we bade farewell to "Sharma Farms," home of the homeless (furniture, that is). Much of which is now useless except as a conversation-starter in someone's home - "Oh, isn't the size of that lantern amazing?" "Wow, where DID you get those giant carved wooden doors on the doghouse?"
I smell fire. I hear horses leaving, and people crying. I see dead people (oops, that line has been taken). I see, for some reason, Chinese nobles and villagers mourning the loss of their treasures. Wait, this is India! Go away, Chinese nobles and villagers. Look at it this way; either way, China or India, the British were the bad guys. Blame them! Don't blame us; we just like attractive, odd things from foreign places. We're not the evil imperialists . . . are we?
OK, you historians out there, I confess. This is actually an image from Japanese WWII propaganda - that's why the Indians look somewhat like caricatures. So maybe the Japanese weren't particularly politically correct during WWII, but their point is still valid - the British HAD destroyed the Indian cotton industry so that the Indians would have to buy British manufactures, crippling India's economy for decades. And the Japanese, of course, didn't want the Indians to forget this as they fought for the Brits against the Japanese in WWII.Welcome to the newly-politicized (but you could see it coming, couldn't you?) blog of Ellen G.
Future Edina Sun-Current headline:
"Former Edina teacher joins Maoist- Gandhi-ist nonviolent revolutionary insurgency. Demands an end to bourgeois imperialist shopping sprees at places with irrelevant names like 'Sharma Farms.' "
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