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Published: October 26th 2009
In one word, India is “wacky.” Every day, I feel as if I have stumbled down the rabbit hole and awakened in a wonderland of strange sights, sounds, and characters. What’s that over there? Why, it’s a man on a camel dressed as the Hindu God Krishna (his face and torso painted in electric blue and his hair dyed black), monkeys fighting over a discarded cigarette carton, cows nonchalantly playing chicken with the on-coming tuk-tuks, and a chorus of men burping and spitting into the running gutter water. You know, typical ten minute period in India.
It’s hard to believe, but India eventually does start to normalize. On our last night in Delhi, I even get a little sentimental and take flash photos of cows on the street--thinking to myself ‘you may never see this again!’ For the first time in one month, I am not in the least bit annoyed as I step over the huge pile of cow feces in the street and dodge a street hawker. This is India, after all--in all its glory.
I remember when I first noticed India--7th grade, World Geography class. We were looking at various types of maps (i.e. political maps,
climate maps) and then we saw a population map (where the country’s size is proportional to its population size--so, India and China are giants and Canada is tiny). India was portrayed in vibrant red and I instantly wanted to go there. At the time, I had reasoned the any place with that many people just had to be filled with possibilities. And--in retrospect--I suppose I wasn’t wrong.
India is bursting with people and--with so many people--there are a lot of problems. The traffic is crazy. The pollution is cough inducing and the sky is the saddest I have ever seen. The streets are covered in trash and our feet are filthy within minutes of leaving a hotel. It is loud. It is frustrating. It is tiring. More than once, I wish we could be some place other than India--some place a little quieter and a little cleaner. I grow weary of being ripped off by strangers and being treated as nothing more than a walking dollar sign. I feel continually sick at the sight of limping dogs, skinny cows, and homeless children. Finally, when Pierce gets cow shit on his leg, I resolve that is India’s last straw.
Yet, as I snap my parting shots of cows on the streets of Delhi, I realize that India has somehow still endeared itself to me. Somehow--steeped in travel survival mode--I had missed a really important aspect of India. The trash, the crowds, and the corrpution are just one part of the picture. With so many people all fighting for footing in a country not big enough to hold them, it makes sense that there would be problems--but it also makes sense that there would be something amazing. India is overflowing with life and it is everything that the vibrant red India promised that it would be on that population map so many years ago.
Woven within the murky fabric of India is so much unexpected beauty. Just when it feels as if the filth of India has won, I will catch a glimpse of sun-drenched, bright red sari hung out to dry in the heavy Indian air--and there it is, street art in the middle of the urban jungle. These simple moments of beauty are everywhere, I eventually realize--the glint of a silver nose ring cracking the brown leathery skin of an old woman, a bright sari moving through
the monochromatic fields, a festively-adorned camel proudly shuffling through the dirty streets, brightly-colored doors on drab houses, and the gleaming white teeth of smiling children. The beauty in India isn’t apparent--like Italy or Switzerland or the Carribean--but its there and, perhaps, because it has to fight a little harder to be seen, its victory is just that much sweeter.
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Mom and Dad
non-member comment
at last!!
I am so glad you did find the beauty in this country. You may have learned a valuable life lesson here...look deeper!