Aarav Kapoor,

13/10/2023

English Grade 9

The Streets of India

Just an ordinary day in Delhi. Fumes dance towards the sky. Sensory overload. Walking
down the streets of downtown New Delhi, I'm submerged in a rapidly changing environment.
Car horns arguing with each other, like little kids in an elementary school cafeteria. The
beeps and honks of the car’s lost meaning. You wouldn't even know you’re being honked at
as its fades into the background.
The smell changes every step I take. Right now I smell the beautiful scent of the local street
foods, the spices playing with my nose hairs like a violin. Street vendors shouting, “Pani puri!
Pani puri! Only 50 rupees!”.
We see smoke rising out of the stands, erupting out like a volcano. The smell of the street
food slowly fades as we take a few more steps, and a new smell arises. EW! The smell of
rotten dog and cow dung lay on the floor, polluting the air with a treacherous stench. We
hastily moved on, covering our noses.
We finally reached the parking area infront of the mall that we would be shopping at. Trying
to navigate our way to the entrance through the rubble of cars, motorbikes and people. We
saw many unfortunate people. The untouchables, or in the Indian caste, known as Dalit’s.
This is the lowest caste in the Indian caste system, the bottom of the food chain. Dalits are
treated less than human, as if they were wild animals. They were not allowed to wear shoes in
front of higher castes, they must pray from different temples, and drink from different wells.
Most of them lay begging on the streets from birth. Born into poverty. They often have many
injuries, or even disabilities because of their low level of health care, and abuse. No one
would donate to these poor souls.
As we trot towards the entrance of the mall, we get ambushed by a swarm of untouchables,
all asking for money. You are never supposed to give them money. Not even charitable
people do it, as the Dalits could spend it on stuff like alcohol or drugs. They are normally
gifted food or clothes instead of money. We urgently shuffled pass trying to get into the mall.
The mall was clean. The mall was safe. However, when exiting, we were faced with the same
chaotic riot as before.
Wandering our way through the same maze as before, shoving past cars, motorbikes and
people. More Dalits begging for food and money, we walk past grudgingly, unable to help.
We finally escaped the apocalypse, exiting the parking lot and on to the sidewalk, re-uniting
with the flavourful pleasant scents of street food. We went over to some tuk-tuk drivers
sitting and talking in a group.
As we try to flag one down to get a ride, we get approached by a little girl who followed us
outside of the parking lot. She was an untouchable. We weren't sure if she had a family or
not, but it wasn’t uncommon for children like her to not have any parents. She was no older
than 7 yet living on the streets all by herself. She begged us to buy some pens, shaking an
opened container which was once full of pens, now only lay a few lonely colours. An orange,
purple, and green pen. The girl looked up at as, with only a glimmer of hope in her eyes, a
plead for mercy in this world of chance, where she was dealt an unlucky life. Being a Dalit.
She wore ragged old clothes, stuff she must have found in the dumpster. Her teeth set
crooked, like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle. Unable to bare the pain of seeing this poor child,
my mother pulls out a few hundred rupees, and handed it to the little girl. The little girl takes
the money with both hands and kissed it. Even after enduring all the suffer, she still treats
people with respect and manners. She steps back and looks at the money, a new spark in her
eyes. She tries to give us the pens, but we refuse. After a few seconds of thinking she turns
back and skips back into the parking lot. By this time, a tuk-tuk pulled over, ready to drive.
We got into the backseats, I always like to sit on the corner, because the wind rushes through
my hair as the tuk-tuk would speed up. After getting seated, we see a few more men come
from the parking lot, begging for money. They must have seen us give the little girl money.
The tuk-tuk driver quickly tries to get us moving, however the untouchables start sprinting.
One of them leaps and grabs the edge of the tuk-tuk, the side that I was on. As I pleaded for
him to let go, and not to hurt himself he refused. The tuk-tuk driver gets visibly irritated by
the untouchable grabbing on to the railing, and swerves into the road, violently trying to
shake the man off.
The man yelps in pain from the burns and scratches from the rough badly maintained asphalt
on the road, yet he refuses to let go. We try to give the man some money so he would let go,
but he couldn't grab it because the speed the driver was driving at. The driver swerves around
a truck, and we see the man unfortunately lose his grip. He flies off. THUD. We hear his
body hit the road. the driver doesn't even take a second to look back. Zero remorse. Appalled
by this behaviour we ask the driver to let us down at the next opening, and he obliges.
Pulling over to the sidewalk, I'm still trying to process what happened. How can people be so
desensitised? I get off in a hurry, while my parents are cussing out the driver, refusing to pay.
The driver shrugs it off. We watch in awe as he reaches into his jean pocket. He pulls out a
crumpled cigarette, as if he had those in his jeans for an eternity. He straightens it out and
uses a lighter to light it. It ignites. Inhale. Exhale. Fumes dance towards the sky. Just another
day in Delhi.

Rationale
I have chosen to create a short personal narrative describing an aspect of my culture, and
home country India. I wanted to express this using descriptive writing which includes using
sensory language, figurative language, and other literary devices. To describe the
environment of the streets I described the sound using a simile, for example “Car horns
arguing with each other, like little kids in an elementary school cafeteria”. I compared the
noise of the car honking with the sound of an elementary school cafeteria to describe the
chaos happening in the moment. I also painted an image in the readers mind by using a simile
to describe the scene. “We see smoke rising out of the stands, erupting out like a volcano”.
This simile describes the smoke coming out of food stans. I said it erupted out like a volcano,
as many people know them for their big explosions and lots of lava and smoke. Another
language device that I used to make the story more sensory, I used personification when I
said, “The smell changes every step I take, one moment I smell the beautiful scent of the
local street foods, the spices playing with my nose hairs like a violin”. Even though the scent
of the spices cannot play with my nose hairs like a violin, but by saying this the reader can
envision the pungent smell of the spices, and how it made me feel and think. All these skills
and examples of descriptive language help me show the reader the experience of walking
through the streets of India, and also, they learn a bit about the country and culture. It also
shows my ability to use descriptive writing and sensory language.