As I'm hustled into a taxi when I arrive, I remind myself this is a city and a country where god is spelt with a lower case but spiritually is all-important and non-negotiable. When I ask my cab driver how the newly opened metro will affect his business, he says with the typical Indian shrug: "It would take a lot of traffic off the streets."
"But how will it affect your business," I probe. He smiles. "There is a god. He always provides."
In this chaotic city with its 15-million inhabitants, there is order. Pedestrians, limousines, taxis, rickshaws, bicycles, beggars and motorbikes and scooters - piled with entire families - all mingle, often within a hair's breadth of one another in this miasma of traffic.
I check in at the private guesthouse in Gurguan, one of the new suburbs on the outskirts of this rapidly expanding city late that evening. The next morning I greet Kalu, the diminutive, delicate man who bring me a china cup filled with hot, sweet chai: "How are you?"
"Same to you, mem," Kalu beams.
So my days open pleasantly with a housekeeper who doesn't speak English but is achingly sweet.
But from the gentle garden with its lodi tree I have to fling myself into the traffic for the drive into New Delhi. I am not deterred: every turn of the wheel reveals another fascinating vista of ancient architecture, cows, and dogs, humans and perambulated traffic.
It takes me three hours from Garguan to the hub of the city. The only bumper bashing I witness is along a newly-opened highway where we drive at the dizzying speed of 50km/hour.
Lane is a misnomer here. If there's a gap in the traffic, you aim your vehicle.
Many is the time I witness a rickshaw and a two-storey high pantechnicon head for the same opening.
I'm heading for one of the top restaurants in the world - Bukhara, where executive chef JP Singh has been presenting the same menu, etched into a slice of tree trunk since 1978.
India is not just a country of curries, and Delhi is a delight for gourmands searching for the delicate tones that Indian gastronomy offers. Having said that, the more commercial the restaurant, the more they play to the bland-down tourist palate, I found. It is in the little neighbourhood restaurant eatery frequented by locals, where the gastronomic gems are to be found.
The city presents cuisine from across the vast country but mostly, North Indian food. Street food, roadside dhabas, low-budget restaurants for the locals and smart restaurants all have fabulously fresh and fragrant tandoori chicken, kababs, rotis chaat, bhelpuri, sweetmeats and biryani. It's also a vegetarian's paradise and virtually nothing contains the holy cow of India.
The cave-like Bukhara in the Mauraya Sheraton Hotel in New Delhi is a favourite among affluent locals and travellers. It is the intensely flavoured North-West frontier cuisine, its tandoors, and the dal bukhara, a flavourful lentil dahl with tomatoes, ginger, garlic and butter loved by Bill Clinton, a loyal supporter whenever he visits the city.
Comparing the shopping mecca of Dubai to Delhi is like comparing an innocent wink to an Indian wedding.
Delhi is the most important trading centre in northern India and the area of Gurguan, which used to be farmland until relatively recently, sprung up because of the economic boom over the last 10 years. In line with the government's "superpower" drive, there is evidence everywhere of an economy on the rise. The building of smart new houses, renovations of old ones and newly opened shopping malls stand shoulder to shoulder like newly-outfitted soldiers readying themselves for the onslaught.
If malls are your thing, head for Goargun, where shopping centres are going up faster than your taxi fare in a non government-approved taxi.
Markets have spruced up their appearance and goods sold reflect a wide array of magnificent Indian handicrafts like carpets, silver, jewellery and silks from across the country. Dilly Haat is one of the best.
I try in vain through the days to capture on camera the dense, multi-sensory Delhi traffic. I decide rather than sitting in a car for hour after interminable hour, to take the train from my guesthouse into New Delhi. I hail a rickshaw and after some discussion with a growing group of people by the roadside, not one of whom speaks English, we set off.
I sit on the back of that rickshaw shining like a white neon sign in the midday Indian sun. The rickshaw spends the trip playing dodgems with the traffic - and everyone is cool, including the cows. It takes almost an hour of side streets, suburbs inhabited by chickens and cows while everyone else is at work, and going down highways the wrong way before we reach our designation. The train station turns out to be a neighbourhood one where trains from the northern parts of the country pick up even more passengers on the outskirts of the city to take them into the centre. Every nook and cranny is packed; those at the end of a long journey, lying across the hard top bunks.
Everyone is patient and quiet. And everyone stares and smiles shyly when I make eye contact.
One person speaks English: "People are friendly here because of God. Have you seen all the temples?"