9 Ways to Get Killed in Delhi

Now that our last guests and essay winners Todd and Hilary have booked and paid for their tickets, the gloves are coming off. We can now tell you about the top reasons why we will be lucky to make it out of here alive.

Here are are nine things that can kill you in Delhi. All of these we or somebody we know has had a personal experience with.

1. Fire

As I sit here writing this the lights are flickering on and off. About five minutes ago the lights went off and I saw a very bright light outside the house across the street accompanied by a loud sizzling sound and a bunch of smoke. It didn't start a fire, but it could easily have. This happens all the time.

Our friend Laurie Goering who lives a few streets away and is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune stopped in earlier today (pictured here in her mostly cleaned-up state). She was covered from head to toe in black soot. Half her house just burned down due to her air conditioner bursting into flames. Their family was all gone from the house at the time, but she got lots of frantic phone calls from the servants while sitting in traffic trying to get home!

So, call the fire department, right? Thankfully we have a fire department within walking distance. After being called, they showed up nearly an hour later. The house was still smoldering inside. Turns out, they have absolutely no equipment. The first thing the firemen did was ask her if she had a flashlight. When she suggested that they try to go in the house and, you know, put out the fire, they said that they needed an oxygen mask, and did anyone have one? After a while someone brought an oxygen mask, but they still didn't go in and use it because it was the only one and they didn't want to waste it! So they just sat out with Laurie and her household staff and neighbors and watched the place burn down. And then they left.

We had our own electrical fire on the side of the house once. You can read about it here. Thankfully it only burned down the wooden electrical box.

A family in our branch once had a fire in their house too. When we arrived to help clean up there was tons of water on the floor, the room was in darkness except for the sizzling of the electrical outlets which we never could figure out how to turn off, and the place reeked of burned plastic. They had a similar experience with the "helpful" fire department.

If all the houses were not made of brick this city would have been burnt totally to the ground a long time ago.

2. Angry Cow

On our street there are two stray bulls. We pass by them every day in the car and frequently encounter them while walking to the market or the ATM (Graham's all-time favorite outing).

Here is a picture of us walking by one of them.

Being Indian cows, we just always assumed that they were of the non-violent type. But the other day, we saw the following article in our little community newsletter. Just a note, the "lane facing Mata Ka Mandir" in this article is the street where we live, and the bull in the article is probably the one in the picture above.

Bulls of NFC (New Friends Colony) In A Nasty Mood - Resident Becomes a Dreadful Victim!!

Animals have always been a serious cause of trouble in our colony.

Time and again, there have been stories about residents bitten by dogs. The dog population has become intolerable now, and it has become a menace for people. A large no. of cows, too have been spotted in the colony. The lane facing Mata Ka Mandir, is like a zoo in the mornings, with cows and dogs arranged in a unique array.

The incident which happened recently is indeed shocking and substantiates the problems faced by NFC residents due to animals. A lady resident Padma Verma had gone to the NFC market for some work. At an arm's distance from her, two bulls were quarreling. One bull broke out from the brawl and attacked her, inserting its horns into her flesh.

Padma Verma lay in a pool of blood with an enormous spectrum of bruises on her face and body. It was just then that the Almighty sent his messenger Bailu Khanna to her rescue. She too, happened to be in the same market and was sitting in her chauffeur driven car when the incident happened and witnessed it completely. A big crowd surrounded the victim. Bailu jumped out of her car and with her driver's aid, lifted Padma, dragged her into her car.

Bailu felt pangs of anguish as she could see foam oozing out of her mouth and she lay unconscious. She rushed to Sujan Mahindra, a nearby hospital in the colony to provide her immediate medical aid, which was critically important.

Padma was later shifted to Vimhans. She is still in the Intensive Care Unit, under the inspection. The doctors said that it was indeed one of the most shocking case ever.

The incident is a shame on the life in NFC, which is considered as a dream colony by most!!

Simultaneously, it is a reminder for those who show their love for animals by feeding them wholesome, as in the case of the lane opposite Mata Ka Mandir, at the cost of their fellow residents in the colony who are attacked by these very animals. The residents are requested to seriously take this as an awakening and rectify their causes and deeds - not to stop feeding street animals, but only to the extent that they don't become accustomed to it, and start collecting in huge numbers at certain sopts and create hindrances in the flow of public and attack them.

We also wish Padma Verma, sound health. We hope that she soon gets back to her normal self, and comes out of the trauma of this incident.

3. Bit By the Wrong Mosquito

Most of you know Merinda's fun with Dengue Fever last year. You can read about it here.

Unless you are in a village or in a situation without proper medical care, the first time you get dengue, it won't usually kill you. The second time is supposed to be worse, however. Thankfully, Merinda survived the last dengue season without a hitch.

4. Murdered by Your Servants

There was a Belgian lady who was brutally murdered by her driver a couple of years ago. We didn't know her personally but know people who did. The driver was driving crazy (which most of them do) and his employer threatened to fire him. Here's the news article about the incident.

There are often stories about this sort of thing in the papers. Sometimes the servants are mad about getting fired. Sometimes they just kill everybody in their beds and steal everything. Thankfully we employ a full-time security guard, but you never know about him either!

5. Trampled to Death

There is absolutely no concept of crowd control here. Every year we go to the Republic day parade and most of the walk onto the parade grounds is OK, except they always have one part somewhere where they will block off the path except for one tiny opening. Everybody will be pushing and shoving trying to get through that opening.

Or there will be a long line, waiting for something to open. The minute it opens everybody runs forward and starts pressing on each other. The picture on the right is one I took while being crushed along while leaving a cricket match.

The feeling of being in a crowd situation like that is truly terrifying, especially with the kids. You are literally smashed from all sides, there is not a spot on your body that is not pressed with the human flesh of another person and you just have to keep moving forward. There is no choice. If you were to trip or try and stop, there would be nothing to stop the mass of people from trampling you down to the earth (Merinda the Editor here: Funny how Rich's tone is starting to sound just like that dramatic stuff from the NFC newsletter and the Republic Day Parade!).

6. Blown Up

Many of you probably read about our trip to Hyderabad where we were on our way to the Charminar when it was bombed. Had our plane or car been on time, we would have been right in the middle of it.

A couple of times a year there is one of these things. There's been a couple in Delhi while we have lived here. What's amazing is that there will be a bombing in a crowded market, and the very next day, the market will be bustling again. People just get used to it and move on.

7. Die Waiting for an Ambulance

If you get into some sort of medical emergency in Delhi, just get into a cab. The ambulances here are almost completely useless. One big reason is that they get no respect on the roads. We see them occasionally with their sirens wailing and everybody is cutting them off and treating them just like any other car.

Of course the reason the ambulances get no special treatment on the roads is that they are typically just flip on their sirens on their way to lunch or something instead of there being an actual emergency. Out of all the ambulances I've seen here not one has had an actual sick person inside. They are usually full of people sitting there calmly just like any other car while the sirens wail away.

A few months ago at a birthday party Merinda met a lengendary woman in town--a Panamanian woman who gave birth to her baby in an Ambassador car. She was at home and her contractions started coming really fast. The first person she called was her meditation teacher who wasn't successful in slowing anything down (apparently the baby didn't feel like meditating). Then she called her sister who brought her official Panamanian Embassy Ambassador car to pick her up and take her to the hospital.

Unfortunately, the baby didn't wait and she gave birth in the car while sitting in traffic with the driver in the front seat and everybody else averting their eyes. Once she arrived at the hospital she figured that she had gotten this far on her own, so she just had them get out their scissors, cut the cord, and then she went home.

But then it came to the matter of the birth certificate. She went back to the hospital later and asked for one. The told her that since the baby was born in the car and not in the hospital that they wouldn't get one from them. Then she went to the Indian government to get one, but they wouldn't issue one because the car was a Panamanian Embassy vehicle and technically while in the car she was in Panama. So now she is working with the Panamanian government to try and get a certificate for her new little Panamanian baby.

8. Death by Mysterious Causes

Since we are telling stories here, this entry is an excuse to share one that was told to us by the Wallys. The Wally family lived here in India for about ten years while working for the American Embassy. Just before they left we took them out to dinner to get some wisdom about living here and they did not disappoint.

Among other enlightening things, they told the story of this family they knew. There was this old cook who came with the house they rented. They didn't know much about him, he just sat there and cooked. They had not lived in India very long when they walked into the kitchen, and there he was, keeled over in the soup. Dead.

Not knowing what to do, they loaded him in the car and took him to the hospital. The people at the hospital looked at him and told them that he was dead. Yes, they knew that, but wouldn't they take him? No, they replied, they only took people who were alive. So they went to the next hospital where they got the same answer.

Hospital after hospital would not take him. Finally, totally frustrated by all this and at their wits end, they quickly drove to the last hospital, laid him out on the door, and quickly drove off.

9. Angry villagers

For a place with the reputation of being non-violent, there is sure a lot of caste-related violence here. Every once in a while we will be driving around and run into some mob shouting and carrying on about something. A couple of days ago it was a bunch of Sikhs, some of them with swords. ("Hey, kids, can you lock your door, there's a bunch of guys with swords outside").

Here's a picture we've shown before of some angry villagers who had blocked a road out in Andhra Pradesh. They were upset that somebody in their caste was thrown into jail.

One day this week I went into work late because the Gujar caste had shut down all the roads leading into and out of Delhi. They burned some buses and were causing all sorts of problems. Why? They want the same treatment as the lower castes. In India there is an equivalent to affirmative action where there are government jobs and places in schools alloted to the underprivileged castes. The Gujars were protesting for their caste to be included in the lower one so they could enjoy such benefits!


Now this blather may sound completely crazy (and it is), but the truth is that there's a part of us that will miss all this danger. First, of course, it's all very exciting.

I remember when we first arrived in India. I looked at those three wheeled autorickshaws where you sit out in the open with no seat belt, and thought that I would never get in one of those things. A year later we were buzzing around Delhi in them all the time, not just us adults, but with the kids. They love them, and the truth is that they don't go any faster than a bicycle. (Earlier today the one I was in with Margaret and her two daughters got a flat tire and I held it up while they guy put on the spare out on a busy road!)

Second, there is something quite empowering about being in a place where, if something goes wrong, nobody is going to help, where there are no ambulances or fire trucks, no 911, nobody to swoop down and rescue you. It is not easy to get used to, but there is this enormous sense of personal responsibility that emerges when there is no "nanny state" or an army of lawyers there to make sure that you live a safe and bubble-wrapped life.