A Tale of Two Cities
New Delhi is a city of 30 million people and is the capital of India. It is the second most populated city in the world. Butter Chicken is among New Delhi’s world famous dishes and you can expect a bowl of it for 300 Rupees. Less than €3.50. It is estimated that over 2 million of the city’s residents live in slums. This is a map of its metro rail system;
Tokyo, the capital of Japan, has a population of 37 million and is the largest city in the world. Sushi is among the city’s famous culinary exports and you would be set back at least 3,000 Yen to get your fill. That’s €24. There are no slums in Tokyo. Below is a map of the city’s subway system;
My summer of 2019 began in New Delhi and ended two months later in Tokyo. As is often the case in Asia, these two cities have more in common with cities on the other side of the planet than with each other. One is surgically precise in everything it does, with pavements so pristine it’s as if they were produced by 3-D printers the previous day. The other rarely has pavements at all, but rather offers roads that merge with loose collections of gravel and grass which serve as both pasture for cows and the means by which millions motor each morning. Both are sprawling conurbations of proportions that are as close to incomprehensible as makes no difference. I’m yet to think of another similarity.
Certainly not food. And in Tokyo, food means Sushi and Sashimi. Paragons of precision, they are a gastronomic Shakespearean Sonnet. Expertly prepared. Clinically crafted. Healthy morsels of fish seemingly measured to the millimetre but it is in being so dedicated to detail that I feel some of the passion is lost. Often times it feels like a ruler and calculator are the primary aids of a sushi chef but surely it is in defying such regimentation that you can separate great cooking from the merely good. Needless to say, cooking in New Delhi is an entirely different proposition.
The anarchic splendour of Indian food is more reminiscent of a Joycean novel than anything to spawn from Shakespeare’s quill. On the surface it is but a profusion of alien oddities but upon deeper inspection an intricate weaving of all manner of influences and inspirations gradually asserts itself. Butter Chicken, or myriad Chaats, Dahls and creamy Pasandas ooze passion and flavour. Spices abandon, flavours collide and just as the highways of New Delhi pump with the complete gamut of motor-vehicle, so too does an Indian dish teem with innumerate spices, seasoning and zest.
However, if the cuisine of New Delhi can be described as ‘anarchic splendour’ – the city’s transport is just plain anarchic – as if the brainchild of Johnny Rotten himself. My mornings in New Delhi involved a brisk barter with several riskshaw drivers and once the price of my 30 minute commute dropped below €2 I followed a regular routine. Firstly, I blessed myself. I then wedged myself into the back of the shoebox-sized rickshaw. And finally I tried to think about anything other than the panorama of pandemonium all around me. In New Delhi you don’t just hand over your money in a rickshaw – in truth you place your life in the driver’s hands. And he (and it’s always a he) then proceeds to provide regular, blatant reminders as to how cheaply he appears to value not just your life but his own. Every one of my days in New Delhi ended with a rigorous debrief as to the commuting calamities of the day. Whose driver hit a cow? Whose rickshaw conked-out in the middle of the highway? Whose driver had the most ardent death wish? It’s funny in retrospect. It is absolutely not funny in the moment.
Tokyo commuting was even more stressful. Every day trudging into Shinjuku station was tantamount to being assaulted by a Japanese Dictionary. Turnstiles seemingly spawned more turnstiles as each morning we had to walk a mini-marathon to get to a platform that may as well have been in Narnia. And all that before getting to a new station for a change-over so we could do it all again. My own human fallibility, admittedly more prominent than most, meant that such ructions couldn’t even guarantee that our final destination was as planned. However, it could guarantee stress, sweat and invariably a pining for the rickshaws of New Delhi.
Even the very air you breathe is of a drastically different quality. Tokyo has dedicated semi-enclosed smoking sections at certain street corners. Despite their intended use, they are reliably clean, cigarette butts are appropriately disposed of, and the air is pure. New Delhi air is essentially an antonym of ‘pure’. In fact, health experts estimate that breathing New Delhi air has the health impact of smoking 25 cigarettes. Every single day. It is as if the city is regularly sprayed with petroleum perfume and each time my plane descended into India’s capital it cut through a blanket of smog so thick it was tantamount to the windows having been painted brown.
Ultimately, asking me to live in either city would be like asking the Pope to choose his second favourite religion. Both Tokyo and New Delhi are too far from my ideal to make a serious case for permanent re-location. But I know for a fact that I was more dishevelled and disillusioned flying out of Tokyo’s Narita Airport than bidding adieu to New Delhi’s equivalent, Indira Gandhi Airport.
This likely had plenty to do with Ireland’s shambolic rugby world cup campaign, and our penchant for ‘Premium Malt’ beer during our Tokyo sojourn, but I suspect Tokyo’s culture was just as culpable. Hyper-organisation is not necessarily conducive to a happier life. Indeed a slavish commitment to punctuality and detail brings a stress all of its own. Not even Premium Malt can help that.
Clearly, citizens of both cities have entirely different opinions on how a life should be lead. So who is closer to their ideal? The Happy Planet Index aims to rank countries in accordance with the sustainable wellbeing of its citizens, accounting for factors such as how satisfied citizens are with life overall, ecological footprint etc. Its most recent ranking had Indians as the 50th happiest people in the world. The Japanese? 58th. I wouldn’t argue that such a ranking is definitive – but it’s instructive to note that there may be a more direct route to happiness than punctual trains.
