Although I had expected India to leave me with many lasting impressions I was surprised to be leaving with so many fond memories. I'll miss the hot chai served in wafer thin plastic cups, the vagueness of the head wobbling and in a way I'll even miss the attention. Other, less obvious, memories stick in my mind like the sign at Trivandrum airport stating that under no circumstances is chili powder allowed in carry-on luggage or the use of the words 'West Asia' instead of the 'Middle East' in all of the newspapers.
At times India felt like a paradise, more often it felt like a lunatic asylum, but it was always a place where the unexpected was commonplace. Everything is possible in India as my friend Georg often said.
I was surprised and often offended by the luxury and the squalor. India has a fine education system with schools that the most developed nation would envy and a fast growing software industry providing sustainable jobs and security, especially in the south. The gap however between the rich and the poor is horrifying. At one point I thought I had encountered just about every type of beggar imaginable; blind ones playing musical instruments, men with no legs sitting on trolleys with squeaky wheels pushing themselves around on their hands, women with small children, children with smaller children, young boys on hands and knees dressed in rags sweeping the dirt from underfoot on the train, old women with no teeth, big eyes that watch while you eat, ones with things growing out of their head or neck, the curious ones that follow and try to engage in conversation, the cross dressers, ones that sit and jangle change, ones too weak to move, ones with deformed hands and club feet, the skinny ones, the amputees, the open wounds, fresh out-of-hospital, the sick, the dying, the faceless hands through train windows, the ones that touch your arm really softly, the hands-to-the-mouth kind looking for food, the one whose face sagged down to his chest and the bubble man with thousands of wart-like growths all over his face and body. But just when you think you've seen them all you see something new - somebody burnt beyond recognition or a once beautiful woman who obviously had acid thrown over her face. These are the memories that are most vivid. These are the images that are inside my head and the ones that first come to mind when people ask me what was India like. It was madness, it was amazing. It was hard.
India can be hard going at times - the poverty is everywhere, bureaucracy never has enough red tape, bus and train trips are often long and uncomfortable and the locals seem to enjoy testing the tempers of even the most experienced travelers. I'd heard more than one person tell me that 'having done' India is better than 'actually doing it'. I wouldn't disagree with that - especially since I'm not there anymore.
In a diverse country like India I know that my experiences are likely to be different from everyone else's. It's not a place that you simply see over a period of time but more of a journey through the sacred, the materialistic and the profane. I enjoyed the challenges of India the longer I stayed there. I got used to the cows wandering the busy streets, the aggressive street vendors and rickshaw drivers, I enjoyed the stately relics from the colonial age and the riotous Hindu temples and pilgrimage sites. The food was excellent, my money stretched a long way and after a while I even got used to the heat. I liked it while I was there - but I like it a whole lot more now from the comfort of home.
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| Indian kids from Chennai |
