Baljeet Nagar Slum

New Delhi in May. Day time temperatures of 116F degrees and dust everywhere, but it’s a dry heat. If you wear a hat and sunglasses and also keep enough water in you, the human body does a surprisingly great job of keeping you going.

For your average traveler the conditions above are enough to either write or run home about. However for a "real traveler" they are just details in a story used to one up another travelers tale. 

In an era of dirt cheap air travel, easy to get visas, and the internet anyone can jump on a plane and do what you did. So while your Mom and friends who never really left the states will think you are cool, in the traveling world you’re just another backpacker.

That’s where the one upping comes into play. In third world cafes and bars around the world travelers share their stories. The younger travelers will relay their stories of terrible bus rides, dirty hotels, and petty crimes committed against them, while the more season travelers will talk of wild adventures and their near misses.

This is the reason why I found myself in Delhi’s largest slum today. I wanted an experience that would assault my senses, endanger my health, and completely divorce me from my established reality.

The pictures that follow do not show any people, because my guide asked that I not take any pictures of the slums residents. What did the people look like? They were clean and their clothes were in good condition. Some of the kids had swollen bellies because they had dysentery, but no one was dying in an alleyway. 

The slum had electricity for those who could pay for it. There was a water truck that came 3 times a day to supply the people with water. And the place really did not smell all that bad in spite of having an open sewer system.

There was a reason for that though. Dry hot air evaporates water quickly. When there is no standing water, there is no smell, and few insects like flies. From what my guide told me, moment it rains the entire slum becomes a flooded smelly cesspool.

The pictures that follow have not been cropped. I recommend you click on and then zoom in on the pictures.

So what's my wild traveler story? Was I nearly robed? Did the slums residents chase me out? No its simpler than that. As I stood at the slums highest point looking out at the new houses the Indian government was building for the slums residents (see the picture below) a naked young boy, maybe 4 or 5 years old, walked out onto the hillside close to me, coped a squat, and let loose a long filthy stream of diarrhea. 

Standing there I imagined the rain flooding the slum and streets with sewage. I saw the sun come out and turn it all to sand. The wind began to blow. As people walked through the streets the dust fell on their clothes and stuck to their feet and shoes. Without knowing it, people tracked it into their homes and as they slept, the little boys sickness slipped into their nose and eyes leaving them sickened in the morning. 

My walk through the slum today made me realize that the true job of a traveler is not to one up his fellow travelers. Rather it is to experience things that others will not or cannot experience and then relaying those stores back to everyone on the sidelines.

New Delhi, India