Indi Go

I had no idea what to expect regarding India. I guess I still don't.  Mark Twain said that 'traveling is fatal to prejudice" and I'd have to disagree.  I say that traveling invites prejudice – because I can't help but crystallize my cultural and social opinions towards different peoples after this travescapade.

Some may protest, quoting some vague generalization about the goodness of people and other multi-cultural ethnic diversity crap. But it's true, the more I travel, the more I see genuine sincerity and goodness in certain places (e.g. Laos, Yunnan, Turkey) -- but I also form hard opinions about how some places are shitty (e.g. Egypt, Bangkok, Beijing-in-winter).  Of course, every place has some good and all of them has some bad, but hey, cut aside all political correctness, some places in this big ol' world are just shitholes -- literally.

Now -- India.  I still don't get it. Opinions have not formed, expectations haven't fallen or risen, and judgments haven't been cast.. in stone, that is.

Whirled through Delhi, and thank goodness, there was little in that city but a dirtier version of Bangkok's Ko San Road -- that and derelict buildings in the new part of 'New' Delhi.  But it was an introduction to the food, the smog and the shit-strewn streets of India. That and the joys of 3rd world bathrooms (you don't wanna know).

Agra was typical and atypical.  The typical 3rd world bullshit of touts and grime and grease.  Atypical because the Taj Mahal was worth it. Like "a pearl", someone said. Kipling crowed, "Like a teardrop on the face of eternity." A less effusive praise testified that it was "a monument to love."

Up close, the Taj showed its age (born in the 17th century) by soot stains, but I've seen enough cheap cardboard imitation from Houston to Las Vegas to Thailand (restaurants and hotels) that the real thing was a relief -- relief because it lived up to expectation.  YupNo and I rickshawed there at dawn to beat the crowds, only to find about two hundred people already lined at the fort's outer enclosure.  No matter, the mosque-mausoleum sliced across the smog like a hot knife across butter, and the entire facade blushed in a crescendo of pinks as the sun tilted towards the burnt sky. 

From our bench (under some leafy branches where green parrots perched and squirrels imitated the birds and the bees) the marbled minarets and onion domes seemed like they were floating, perched on the vast marble platform. It was a perfect metaphor for India... that the matters of the spirit in one of the great religious centers of the world can rise above the matters of the physical in one of the poorest nations of the world.

To put it another way, India, for all its gross physical imperfections, exuded a sense of calm that rose above the mystical, that the dharma of being is woven into the dirtied strands of life here, making it bearable, at least, and something of a wonder for a traveler to witness.

For me at least, India was different than Egypt.  Everything is more.  More touts, more shit, more scams, more people, more poverty – more more more.  But I can't hate it – yet.  The harshness isn't there.  Instead, I see a similar patience that I saw in Vietnam.  The same calmness in the midst of chaos – not uncaring really.. but there is another set of eyes, one that is trained on the samsara-dharma within while the other gazes on the frenetic swirl of physical activity that threatens to overwhelm them on the without.

Scenes:

A woman combed her thigh length tresses on the flat roof of her house, while baboons clambered over her walls.  Below, young men bicycled through the narrow warrens of streets and looked up just as she vanishes towards the shadows.

Two boys sat bow-legged on their elephants.  Cars and camels and cows and rickshaws and tuk-tuks swerve and honk and braked and clambered around and on and over pavements and medians and dirt streets to avoid these kings of the road.  The elephants' heads were painted in pinks and purples and blues – like clowns they were.