flickering pictures

While I get things up and running around here, I thought I’d post my India notes, scribbled and scrawled with love, inspiration and revelation during the five weeks I spent scurrying around India last year. I was thrilled with the feedback the first time I posted them, and they should give you an idea of the flavour I’ll be trying to create here. Sorry for the redundancy if you’ve already seen them on Facebook.

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6:17am Wednesday, Jul 11

My god, I landed Monday night and it feels like I’ve been here two weeks - in the best possible way.

I thought I’d do this in chronological order, to make it easier to put the book together when the Random House people come calling. But I can’t, because before I go on about the craziest bus ride I’ve ever had, I have to say that the destination, McLeod Ganj (next to Dharamsala, in the Himalayas) is paradise. This place is stunningly beautiful, planted in the mountains and surruonded by lush greenery on every side. The roads twist and spiral, turning into paths, then into a rock stairway winding its way up the mountain, painstakingly built stone by stone. The people couldn’t be more different than those in Delhi; people nod hello, shake your hand, happily offer directions or good advice, and then smile and walk away without that constant expectation of a few rupees for their trouble. This is Eden in the mountains and right now, in the monsoon season, it is covered by a thick fog that comes and goes, obscuring everything more than 20 feet away when it’s at its thickest. We are truly in the clouds here - at 5,580 feet above sea level, even though Everest is twice as high, this place feels like the top of the world.

Speaking of Delhi, I’m all for the bustle, but the hustle was really starting to get to me. Yesterday I had time for some sightseeing around the city before hopping on the bus to McLeod Ganj, and nearly everyone I met on the street - certainly everyone who approached me - had the single goal of extracting as many rupees from me as possible, employing all sorts of scams I’d been warned about earlier and probably some I hadn’t. Putting aside the moral element for a second, it’s a strange thing to know that for a huge group of people, you’re not a person but a handful of coins waiting to fall into their pockets. It particularly gets to me because the dehumanization works both ways; the 50th toddler who asks me for money on a given day doesn’t get a second glance. Worse, she doesn’t even register, filtered out with all the other relentless noise. I’m wrestling with that in myself, but it isn’t even conscious - it’s as though the brain has this dormant tune-out defense mechanism that flicks on automatically when the moment arises.

Of course, I knew that before I got here. I knew all these things intellectually, had read the papers and watched the news. More than that, I’ve always had a fascination with the developing world and read books, magazines, and reports about poverty and development. But experiencing it first hand, I get angry at our complacency and it becomes intolerable that people should be allowed to live like this. Funnily enough, Siddhartha says that we should “know not only with your intellect, but with your eyes, your heart and your stomach.” Seeing in person what we see in UNICEF commercials does something to you… I hope I stay angry long after I get back home. I’ll be disappointed with myself if I don’t.

But strangely, more than anger at their plight, I’m discovering a deep respect for these destitute people who nonetheless work incredibly hard for what they can scrape together. I was struck by the fact that almost everyone I see - on fancy streets and in slums - is DOING something. Very few people are lying around the sidewalk during the daytime. Old women and small children alike sell used tires, gather scrap metal, pick through garbage, carry hay - anything of the remotest value to survive another day. Motorcyle riders who have no helmets use army helmets, hard hats - anything at all to protect them from <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM”>Delhi’s insane traffic</a>. String and tape hold together the city’s autorickshaw fleet. Alls sorts of strange contraptions attach propane tanks, water jugs, food sacks and other items to the bicycles of slow but steady delivery boys. If necessity is the mother of invention, these people have a huge amount of both these things. The need is massive, but so is the creative response, the imaginative low- or no-cost solutions to everyday problems. There’s an industriousness here that I’ve never seen before, and it commands respect. Not just that, but a stoicism that makes Canada look awful. The drivers, for example, honk like madmen, drive faster than even the craziest Québecers, cram as many vehicles as possible into a “lane,” and cut each other off without a sideways glance (anyway nearly all the sideview mirrors are folded inwards to keep them from being immediately knocked off). But looking at their faces, there’s not a hint of stress, anger or frustration. No swearing, nothing. When I told my cabbie about a typical Montreal driver’s reactions, he found it hilarious.

As for the bus ride, let’s just say I am truly happy I couldn’t book a flight. the 4:00 bus left around 5:00, with a half-hour stop at a gas station for no particular reason - certainly we didn’t get any gas. Next stop was a bus stand a few blocks away, where some Buddhist monks climbed aboard to head to the residence of the Dalai Lama. We waited at least another half hour there, without explanation - likely the driver has a deal with the half-dozen or so vendors who tried endlessly to sell us bags of chips and unsealed water bottles, and collects a commission on each of the passengers’ purchases. The driver and vendors must have calculated - correctly - that after sitting for half an hour in the scorching heat and a humidity that soaks everything to the core without a drop of rain, we silly tourists are liable to buy even the most dubious of cold drinks.

Then to the amazement of all aboard, it was a u-turn and back to the gas station - this time for gas.

Around this time it struck me that after only a day in this country, I hadn’t immediately found anything strange or unsettling about the fact that not one of the three bus drivers who over 16 or so hours would be taking turns shuttling us up the steep cliffs of the Himalayas, could be a day over 15 years old. Maximum. This, in a country where on any given week, a number of buses crash into - or off of - the cliffs. How did this not freak me out!?

The road is not a road but a loose collection of deep holes and gaping chasms, with a bunch of pits thrown in to fill it all out. The drivers seemed to be aiming for the holes, in order to avoid the chasms and the pits. Signs reading “30 km/h max” whizzed by as we did easily three times that, maybe four. Insane. The bus had next to no shocks, and the effect was that, when we hit the bigger holes, my ass was easily eight inches off the seat. And through it all, 15 or 16 hours, I couldn’t stop grinning at it all. I take that as a good sign. No pee break meant cutting the top off a water bottle to use it instead, and then throwing it out the window since there’s really no safe place to store a coverless bottle of pee on a violently swaying bus doing 100km/h up a cliff. Sorry if that’s too much information - at least I had it easier than an Israeli traveller I met on the bus, who unfortunately had to do the same thing, except without the benefit of being a boy. She relayed her success with a big grin and proudly told me that there had been only minimal spillage at the back of the bus. This is India!

A few hours before reaching our destination, the sun started to rise. I can now say from experience that watching a sunrise in the Himalayas - even behind thick fog and clouds in monsoon season - is a singularly perfect experience. Just, wow… The power of this place, of these mountains, is incredible. A good friend once told me that when she was in Nepal, she couldn’t bring herself to take a picture of Mt. Everest, because she felt it would have robbed it of its majesty and power. I didn’t understand then, but I do know.

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