Ahhh, India. How does one summarize 10 weeks in this country? The sights, smells, sounds, colours, interactions; the feelings, the wonder, the amazement, if all catalogued and illustrated sufficiently so as to impart the reader with a picture capturing the scope of the India experience, would be a novel’s length for each day spent here,
India is everything you’ve ever heard that it is. If you visit, as we have, you will love it, you will hate it. You will be amazed and uplifted, you will be discouraged and saddened. You will encounter the most loving, hospitable people whose graciousness and generosity will knock you off your feet, and you will be robbed, cheated, fooled and taken advantage of. You will want to book the next flight out, and you won’t want to leave.
India is a modern country; it is also young and developing. The riches are astounding; the lack of wealth heartbreaking. But through it all, the ups and downs, highs and lows, you will find a spirit unmatched anywhere else. Or you won’t, and your strongest memory will be your ruined loafers, covered in shit.
When we arrived, we were terrified (much more so than either of us would admit). We had come without a single plan, having done minimal research, and completely at the mercy of arrangements made by a friend (Jazzy and Simer, we love you!). Our flight was delayed 2 hours, and upon our arrival in New Delhi, we could not find the driver who was supposed to be waiting for us with our names written on a sign. We walked back and forth, anxiety and self-cursing thoughts increasing with each pass. I had forgotten our friends phone numbers in Canada, I could not remember the name of the city we were supposed to go to, I did not know the names of the family we would be staying with, and all I could see was a sea of Indians; their brightly coloured saris, the men with dots glowing on their foreheads smoking beside the No Smoking signs, the flat muted concrete building that was the Arrivals area of the airport, and beyond, dirt, garbage, barbed wire, cows, and traffic. Trying to keep calm and the illusion of control for my wife’s sake, I stopped our pacing and suggested we put down our bags, smoke a cigarette, and figure out what to do. I inhaled deeply, my mind racing and stumbling with the barrage of new information, doubts, thoughts and scenarios. As I exhaled, a man stood up from his motorcycle which was parked on the sidewalk, walked over to me, and in slightly accented English, asked for a light. I gave him my lighter, he lit his cigarette, and gave it back to me with a smile and a nod. “Thank you my friend.” At once my mind cleared, and I was renewed with a sense that this would be alright, that we were indeed on the right path. Flicking my cigarette aside, we agreed on one more pass through the crowds assembled at the arrivals gate, and there was our sign. 7 hours later, we arrived at our destination. Looking back at that first day, I find myself chuckling at how worried and panicked I was. Having now done 10 weeks of travelling through India, I can say with some confidence that I could be dropped anywhere and I think I would manage just fine.
“A Guest is like God.” This we were told by the family we stayed with. We have never experienced the type of hospitality that we experienced in India. Neither was this treatment confined to one household. We were fortunate enough to stay with 5 different families, five homes in 4 cities/villages, three religions, countless family members, various levels of financial class. We visited the homes and families of the servant girls, met their parents and sisters; visited the home of one sister who had recently married and met her husbands family – her new family. In each household, we were treated like royalty, which was difficult to accept; even the poorest families offered us everything they could: cold Fanta, fruit, a cup of chai, then more when our cups ran dry. Crammed in their single-room apartment, they beamed with pride while serving us, and we guiltily accepted their offerings, refusing offers of more as politely as possible with the language barrier between us.
We took part in an India wedding. ‘A Simple Wedding’ they called it. Before leaving Canada, I worked at a resort serving in their restaurant to make extra money for the trip, and I witnessed a large lavish wedding with a fireworks display. That celebration paled in comparison to the ‘simple wedding’ which we were blessed to be a part of in a small village in Punjab.
We left Khanna and travelled to Amritsar, birthplace of the Sikh religion. We toured Chandigarh, one of the most modern cities in India. We spent a lot of time in New Delhi, more time than we initially expected. Delhi has a population of 25 million or so, nearly that of all of Canada (33 million), yet it is not as chaotic as we thought it would be. Not to say there isn’t chaos, it is as plentiful as vegetarian restaurants, but as we got more comfortable, the city became less daunting. We experienced one of the Great Wonders, the Taj Mahal in Agra, and then toured through the province of Rajasthan, visiting first the ‘pink city’ of Jaipur, Rajasthan’s capital, then spotted a large male Bengal tiger in it’s natural habitat during a safari through the Ranthambhore National Park. We had a splendid week in Udaipur, the ‘lake city’ which reminded us of Kelowna, and I got my first taste of driving through India’s traffic on an automatic scooter (some say if you can drive in India, you can drive anywhere. I’m inclined to agree). We got bored in Pushkar, and climbed the hills of Himachal Pradesh to visit the Dalai Lama in Mcleod Ganj. We felt at home here, in the mountains with it’s clean air and pine trees, birds singing to us each morning while we sat on our balcony easting breakfast. Five days seamlessly became ten days as we made friends, hiked to secluded waterfalls, and relaxed. We ran off the edge of a cliff and parasailed through the air above the city of Dharamsala, and then rafted through the rapids of the Ganges River in Rishikesh. After 10 weeks we had travelled through 4 provinces, 12 cities/towns/villages, and covered over 4,500 Kms by car, bus, train, auto-rickshaw and foot.
We saw slums and shanty-towns that stretched as far as the eye could see, we saw mansions and temples made of gold, forts atop mountain ranges; every bridge was clogged with traffic trying to navigate past stray cows, we encountered people with every deformity/amputation/physical impediment imaginable begging on the streets, naked children playing in piles of garbage, pilgrims inspecting fields of wild marijuana, dirty hippies from every nation. We read about anti-government demonstrations from people tired of the corruption that is rampant in all levels of public service, and we saw the country come together in celebration when India won the Cricket World Cup for the first time in 28 years. We danced in the streets, we ate in dingy food stalls, drank more whisky during celebrations than I’ve drank in my entire life. Never again will I be able to board a train or bus without thinking of the boys who would come on board at the various stops and repeat in loud monotone, “Pani – Water – Cold Drinks – Chips – Chocolate” or the Chai-wallahs carrying their large urns of Chai Masala goodness.
We’ve heard two sayings countless times: God is in India, and Anything is possible in India.
After 10 weeks, I’d have to agree with both. And with 10 hours remaining before we embark on our next adventure in the next country, we are already planning our return to this majestic, beautiful, dirty, loud, erratic, mesmerizing, enchanting country.
If you are reading this, Thank you to the people who took us in and treated us better than family. We will miss you greatly, and look forward to seeing you again.
Thank you India. You have changed our lives forever.
Posted by Dan
