We Found Delhi in America!
We had travelled thousands of miles to explore America. We hadn’t quite expected to bump into Delhi along the way!
We were driving towards Mariposa, California, when a familiar name suddenly caught our attention on a green roadside sign.
DELHI!
For a moment, it was enough to make us look twice.
Had we missed a turn somewhere, or had India quietly acquired a new territory in California?
Of course, this wasn’t our national capital. It was Delhi, a small community in Merced County, in California’s Central Valley.
And there was another surprise.
The Americans pronounce it differently.
What we have always known as Delhi (DEL-hee) is pronounced DEL-high here.
Apparently, even Delhi had acquired an American accent!
Being Indian, we naturally found the name intriguing.
After all, Delhi is our national capital, our political nerve centre and, depending on the day, a national exercise in patience.
This American namesake seemed to lead a considerably quieter existence.
The roadside sign was quite informative, too.
Population: 10,656. Elevation: 121 feet.
Our Delhi would probably need a considerably larger sign to accommodate its population statistics, never mind its traffic complaints!
This little Delhi has an interesting history.
It grew out of a land settlement project in the early twentieth century, when farming plots were offered to settlers, including First World War veterans.
Located in California’s fertile Central Valley, agriculture became central to its development.
It isn’t a tourist destination, and we certainly hadn’t planned a visit.
We simply happened to drive past it on our way to Mariposa.
But sometimes, the most entertaining travel discoveries are the ones that don’t appear in the itinerary.
We didn’t explore the town or meet its residents.
A roadside sign, a couple of photographs and an unexpected moment of amusement were all we needed.
I did wonder whether the residents of this Delhi ever think about their much larger namesake in India.
And whether they realise that, somewhere across the world, their little community shares its name with a capital city of more than twenty million people.
Perhaps that is one of the quiet pleasures of travelling.
You set out to discover unfamiliar places, but occasionally something familiar catches your eye and connects you, however briefly, with home.
We found Delhi in America. Or, to respect the local pronunciation, DEL-high!
Either way, it was a Delhi experience without the traffic jams.
And for a discovery we hadn’t even planned, that was quite a return on our mileage!
