Hello all... sorry I haven't written in awhile. I've been out of email access so I'm putting in a few notes in quick succession from this past week's travels.
India is intense. Everyone warned me that it would be. The food, the people, the atmosphere- everything. Driving through Delhi, or rather, riding in the passenger seat, it is clearly evident that over 1 billion people live here. The road is a testament to living history, and I applaud and slightly fear anyone with the courage (or insanity) to climb behind the wheel on India's roads. If you're not a God-fearing person, driving in downtown Delhi rush-hour traffic will cure you quickly. The roads are narrower than they should be, and pedestrians do not have the right of way. Here power is delegated according to your size. Pedestrians walk with traffic, making room for men pushing heavy carts burdened down by the days goods to sell, and they make way for wheeled carts pulled by bulls, or 'bullock carts'. These carts are in a poorly coordinated dance with bicycles, which often carry at least two passengers, and bicycle rickshaws. Motors push all of these primitive modes of transportation out of their ways, beginning with scooters, bicycles, and auto-rickshaws, and moving up the food chain to cars and finally trucks in order of size.
All of these vehicles battle for their small patch of road, but all traffic stops for one traveler: the cow. As cows are sacred according to Hindu tradition, they rule the road, the fields, basically India, and can be found basically everywhere.
I spent my first few days in Delhi, and in one of my conversations--this with a musician--she remarked that India is a picture of 2000BC meeting 2000AD. On the same street you will see slow moving bullock carts burdened down by a huge load of straw next to men in suits in the backs of their cars on their cell phones on the way to work at their IT firm. It is overwhelming and crazy, but also somehow beautiful.
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