An Auto, A Cow,
and the Word "Kitna."
I arrived at the airport knowing four Hindi words. Forty-five minutes later I was haggling with a man about a metal box with no doors, and a cow had right-of-way on a motorway. Welcome to Delhi.
Right. If Day 1 was "I learned four words and one of them got me through immigration," Day 2 is "I learned that Delhi traffic contains cows, that auto-rickshaws do not have doors, and that the single most important word in any language is kitna" — कितना — how much.
I did not know kitna yesterday. I know it now. I will know it when I am dead.
Let me back up. Technically this all happened on the same calendar day as the airport — yesterday tipped into today somewhere between the auto and the guest-house bed. But I'm writing it up the next morning with a cup of chai (चाय) and a ceiling fan that has, miraculously, calmed down overnight. So for diary purposes: Day 2.