Delhi is not for the faint of heart. First-time visitors to India’s capital are likely to be struck by just how loud the city is. The streets are swallowed by drivers constantly honking, wielding their vehicle’s built-in instruments not for road rage but to indicate their movements the way we might use turn signals. While dodging the traffic you will simultaneously face interruptions by vendors hawking, at dirt-cheap prices, the unsold surplus of goods “Made In India” (but still inflated from what you can get them for if you have the stomach to haggle). Dense clusters of temples cater to dozens of religions, each performing their own sacred rites across idiosyncratic hours of the day, meanwhile shopkeepers who are unable to attend in person play pre-recorded recitations on portable radios. Kids lighting firecrackers, street monkeys howling from the trees, oil sizzling upon the entry of ready-to-be-fried bhaturas – all of it comingles into unpredictable urban melodies.