APRIL 2006 - Namaste

Our time in India has come to a close. A good thing. I am tired. I have visited many countries and nothing...absolutely nothing compares to India. Beautiful, filthy, spiritual, maddening, heartwarming, horrifying, relaxing,chaotic...India will not be pinned down. It's a mass of humanity. Indescribable. It is no use to ask an Indian "why?" or "how?". India is what it is and somehow, some way, it works. Do not question it. For two and a half months, we traveled through the country. Several times, I have tried to put our good and memorable experiences into words. Each time I tried, the real India got in the way. The India that exists just outside the door. The filthy India covered in piles of garbage and human/animal waste. The India that reeks of urine. The India that accosts my senses with it's crushing crowds, traffic, blaring horns, dust and pollution. The endless attention and harassment that India pours on its visitors in the form of curious locals, beckoning touts, shop owners, rickshaw drivers and the vulgar words of inappropriate men. The very poor India which sadly, a tourist somehow learns to ignore over time, but it is always there, desperate and begging.

India has its beauty and charm, but a traveler must work hard for it. The very rare moments I was able to step back from the place and just quietly observe, I can see why the country is such a fascinating place. A few weeks ago, I was able to do just this in the small town of Badami. Day glo orange Fanta in hand, I sat on the steps of a shop and watched the street below. Buses, auto rickshaws (three-wheeled taxis), cars, and motorbikes furiously honk their horns, jockeying to get ahead of one another. Wooden carts pulled by bony white oxen, horns painted blue, bells jangling from their harnesses, set their own pace through the traffic. Young boys, bent double, busily sweep the dirt from the shop/restaurant floors and entry ways back to the street...a seemingly futile effort as I look through the haze of dust outside. Women in brilliantly colored sarees and salwar kameez, fragrant flower garlands pinned in their oiled, black hair...they sift through piles of tomatoes, ginger, jackfruit and bargain hard. In contrast, a group of muslim women in long black chadors, eyes peering through their small window to the outside world, pass by, children and overstuffed shopping baskets in tow. Fat, gentle, sacred cows amble wherever they please, poking their heads into doorways of homes, restaurants and sweet shops, often rewarded with a stroke on the head and a day old chapati or vegetable scraps. Dozens of pigs root through a river of raw sewage in search of food, periodically breaking into a squealing fight over a good find. Street smart dogs, rib cages protruding, dodge in and out of traffic...some with fur, some without...a few, the recent victims of run ins with the road, their broken legs dangling. Urban monkeys navigate the labyrinth of deadly electrical wires above in search of an unattended fruit or vegetable cart. A mass of Indians thread their way through this chaos, peripheral vision working on overdrive to avoid being stepped on, run over or possibly stepping in something undesirable. An Indian man stands nearby...hair and thick moustache dyed an unnatural shade of red to cover his oncoming gray. He folds his lungi (sarong) up over his knees to catch some of the breeze. He loudly clears his throat and chest down deep and spits in the dust near my feet. Welcome to India.

I can't say I would choose to return to the subcontinent given the choice. But I will never say never. I have a sneaking suspicion that given enough time away from the country, I will somehow miss it.