India

Here I am………… in India, or better said Bombay. A lot to be explored? Or maybe not? Being in a country that is so contradictory in itself (e.g. climate differences, wealth, skin colours, mentality, languages, religions, histories, beliefs, landscapes etc) it is not that odd that one is confronted with many many many conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I just want to run away as fast as possible and go anywhere but India. On the other hand, I am still curious to find out more about the country, the culture, the traditions, the religions, the huge diversity of people, the food, and so on. My emotions about India change about every hour or day. A bad day can be turned into a good day just by meeting someone nice on the train or by seeing my two kiddos, who I have met on the train during my first week. They are two girls of about 8 years old who take the train with their mother to go to school. When they see me among the masses of people that are squashed together in the ladies compartment they immediately start smiling and waving. Those are the good moments.

On the train from Pune to Bombay I bought a book, called holy cow, by Sarah McDonald and it reflects most of my emotions up to now. India is like Hotel California: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. For me this phrase has become slightly too literal in its meaning since British Airways has made it clear that I cannot leave this country before 23 January 2007, due to the fact that I have a student seat. Unless I am willing to pay 600 euros or book a new ticket, I cannot get out of here. Welcome to you new prison :).
Getting on the plane to India at London Heathrow already provided me with a small glimpse of life in India. People running around, families being spread over the entire airplane and trying to rearrange seats so that they can sit together, people screaming, people whispering and gossiping about the other Indians on board. It all looked like a one big ant family, which from a distance seems unorganised but when looking more closely, is rather well-organised and I have to say I was quite amused while observing this chaos. It did, however, delay our flight by an hour. Arriving in India, you are introduced to the national sound, or maybe I should call it the national anthem, which goes like this: crrrrrrrrrrrrrrroaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkk. Pttttttttttttttaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbb!!! This is the coughing up of spit which is then spit wherever with a lot of sound. It is only one of the Indian manners I had to get used to. Others are: peeing and pooing in public, throwing dirty water out of the window while people are walking below, throwing garbage wherever you want, burping and farting in public......well just a small array to let your imagination create you an image of India. :)
Bombay itself is a roaring rough sea of traffic wildlife with buses, trucks, cars, rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles and leper patients moving around on a square wooden board on wheels determining their own hierarchy. The holy mantra written on the backs of all these vehicles is, however, the most impressive as it states: ‘HORN PLEASE’. The sounds you hear while walking the streets are a ring-road soundtrack of a chaotic symphony of deep blasts, staccato honks, high-pitched beeps, musical notes and a weird duck drone. When cars go in reverse, you will often hear the tune ‘it’s a small world after all’ being played. How ironic and it reminds me of Damascus where cars had the same sound effects.

Being on a bus or train you have to be aware of the scary Indian crowd you are about to face. Indians jump up and tackle anybody they find on their way, while the bus or train are still moving. You may wonder why this is. Well..... all this is done to obtain a seat. For instance, when you take the train to the end station, from where it will leave again after 10 minutes, you cannot get off immediately as you first have to press yourself against the sides while the outrageous women from outside run into the train. It is a crazy world out there people and a day without bruises is a day not lived!!!!
The apartment I live in is the one peaceful place in Bombay. I share the house with a spinster and live in more luxury than ever before. I have my own bathroom and tv and I do not have to cook or clean. When I watch out of my window, there is an amazing tree with parrots. These parrots have a very calming effect and enable me to briefly put myself outside of India… out of this complete and utter mess they call Bombay. The downside is that we live near the airport and you often wake up in the middle of the night wondering why you are being bombed………… These are just airplanes taking off in the middle of the night causing major sound blasts. In addition to the airplanes, the rickshaw drivers never seem to sleep and they keep honking their horn the entire night. So………basically I have not slept for the past 5 weeks.
82 % of Indians are Hindus. Other major religious categories are muslims and christians. Hindus revere cows, probably because one of their favourite gods, Krishna, is a cowherd, and Shiva – the Lord of Destruction – has a bull called Nandi. However, although they worship this animal, they treat them dreadfully. Scrawny and sickly, cows survive by grazing on garbage that is dumped in plastic bags. The bags collect in their stomachs and strangulate their innards, killing the cows slowly and painfully. These animals are then taken to volunteer vets for operations. No need to explain further…. Either they survive or they die. If they survive, they are released to eat more plastic. Rats are also adored over here and crows are seen as ancestors. Better not tell them that the scientific reasons for the massive crowe population is due to the amazing amounts of garbage that are lying around. Remove all the garbage and 90% of this ancestral population will disappear into thin air. Sshhhhhhhtttt... our little secret ;).
Bombay is overwhelming. For me, I think it is subconsciously overwhelming. I manage getting around perfectly well. But India is always there, you cannot get away from it. Not for a second. And I think that this is what bothers me the most about being here. There are always people staring at you (and with staring I mean, literally for 30 minutes or more), taking pictures of you, wanting to touch you, asking for money, there are always animals, dust, pollution, cars, the honking of horns, beggars, people with all sorts of diseases, garbage, poverty….. India is just omnipresent and it haunts you in your dreams. When walking the road to the Haji Ali mosque you will see burned bodies, people with no limbs, blind people and whatever more begging for money. I think that if you do not let your self-defence mechanism kick in, you will not survive here. So do not feel bad when you seem to see through the slums, the beggars, the ill people, and all. It definitely is your self-defence mechanism taking over. Even if you close your eyes and turn on your disc-man to the max, you are not able to block India out. It is just too ……… there. I wonder how come this so-called booming economy is not able to heal itself.
India itself has some odd practices. There is for instance the matter of dowry burning where a woman is set alight in a ‘cooking accident’ because her husband or mother-in-law want more dowry money and attempt to kill to get it. If the bride dies, the husband can marry again and collect another dowry; if she lives, she can be ashamed into leaving the house as damaged, useless goods. Another practice is that parents often mutilate their own children, by breaking their arms or legs, by amputating one of their limbs or scratching either or both eyes out, to make them look more miserable and thereby hoping to be able to collect more money by begging. These are of course only a few practices in a long list. Often when you give a child beggar money they will be forced to give it to the lord of the neighbourhood who collects the money earned by all the kids of his gang. He will then usually give them 10% of what they owned. It is in fact an offence to give a child beggar money and you can be fined for it.
So far I have been outside of Bombay several times. I have been to Alibaug, which is close to Bombay where we climbed a mountain to reach a temple. We now no longer wonder why the temple did not have a picture in the guide…. simly because it no longer exists. I have been to Aurangabad, where I saw the small Taj Mahal (this one was made for the mother whereas the one in Delhi was built for the wife and is bigger) and managed to be squashed in a jeep with only 21 persons. We went to see the Ellora and Ajanta caves which were very nice. Another weekend we went to Pune which did not have that much to offer, besides some freaky looking Europeans with long rastas and blurry vision who are followers of Bhagwan Rajneesh, a.k.a. Osho, a.k.a. a sex guru. This was true survival. At the moment we are preparing to go to Rajasthan. This will entail over 70 hours of train rides, so I am very curious. At the reservation office they have special tourist and ladies windows. Though the tourist window woman gave us a very hard time telling us there were no tickets and making us come back 6 days in a row!!! Time for the final arrangements now.

I have only had a food/water poisoning once so far, fortunately. And imagine this: it was because I ate European food. I have been eating vegetarian almost every day since I got here. And only last Friday did I allow myself to eat a porc sissler in a restaurant. It was just too good :) But I would do it again!!!!!

Waaaaaaaah soooooo much more to tell, but I will leave you all for now! I hope you are all doing well and for now I already wish you a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year. May all your dreams come true!!! Till we meet again :)

p.s. pics will be posted online after I return to Europe. Until then I will try to find some pics online.