Weird India

In India, a lot of things are weird.

There are a lot of people here, almost as much as animals.  On any given street, you'll see a couple of stray cows and a few water buffaloes sauntering down the side.  Then there are the goats tied up on any ol' wall – I saw three yesterday asleep on top of each other. Yes, on top.  They were kinda cute, as they lay their heads on each other, sort of like kids (haha, kids) when they doze.  Goats – they sort of look like Tracy McGrady, no?  Oh and of course, horses and donkeys and camels have the street too – not to mention elephants now and then.

The people have to share the streets with all these animals (the monkeys and egrets and baboons have the rooftops) – and the problem is, animals have the tendency to defecate wherever they want.

It doesn't matter, though.  Kids chase after each other barefoot, women and men pick their noses in public, as if it hid the best chocolate nugget in the world or something, and everyone, it seems, sleep on the sidewalks.  The sidewalk sleepers reminds me of dogs elsewhere in the world – dogs have a tendency to sleep wherever they can find warm sun rays.  Here, both dogs and people sleep side by side.

The mosquitoes are happy.  Like other animals in a huge vegetarian country, they're fat.  Fat and bloody happy.

In a service economy, human capital is prized and is worth a lot more than machine services.  Uniqueness is key and all that crap. We place higher value on white-collar versus those dirty gorillas in their blue collars, don't we?

In India, the more human capital is spent, the cheaper it is.  A rickshaw manned by a old dude with one eye costs about 20 rupees (about 50 cents) while a motor rickshaw costs double at 40 rupees.  YupNo and I were arguing this point, highlighting a commoditized economy versus wage discrepancy, mass-market dynamics and other econ 101 bullet points before I distracted her by saying that the Taj Mahal was a crappy 'monument to love'.  She thinks it's so romantic -- "didya know that the Mughal emperor in his last days was jailed by his son in a tower that faced his dead's wife tomb?".  No I didn't, but just like women, they ooh and ahh whenever a dude spends a huge amount on something pretty but complain like crazy when we ask for some quiet and five extra minutes to watch the end of a ball game. Not a fair exchange, no?

Today, a priest grabbed my hand and dragged me to a holy lake (where Ghandi's ashes was strewn).  He sat me down, crushed petals in my palm, chanted lines for my father, fictitious dead mother, non-existent sister and wife and son, and stained my forehead with red dye followed by rice grains.  Then I had to scatter the flowers into the lake, chant some more, and give him $100 for 'all the poor children' in the town.  I declined and gave him 50 rupees and hurried off, in case this holy man took an affront and decided to take away my blessings.

Like I said, a lot of weird things. But hell, if I don't get bitten by a stray dog (a puppy tried to nip my ankles today, but I think he was just hungry and was going after the shit on my soles) or a monkey or some other animal during my stay here, I'll be grateful.

Fascinating. How do the rich travel through that?

Posted by: C.H.Ha | November 14, 2006 at 07:38 AM

I think India is the one country where rich or budget, you have to confront the swelling chaos around you. At some point, everyone comes in contact with the streets, the hustlers – everything. As one Indian guy told me, Indians are like your hand.. no two fingers are a like.. some good and some bad.

Something like that.

Posted by: j.fisher | November 15, 2006 at 09:20 AM

I fully agree with you that its Weird India, that's why I also started a Blog who's Title is Weird India only & its url is http://weirdindia.blogspot.com

Do visit this blog & you shall find many many more Weird things about India on this Blog.

Posted by: Sancho | November 23, 2006 at 06:37 AM