30 Jun |
|
Before we’ve even packed our bags I hate the fawning from fellow travellers. It seems obligatory to shout your love for India from the rooftops. Obscure villages are praised for their lack of tourists (are they missing the irony?), travel advice arrives unbidden and brave is the traveller who’ll admit they really just couldn’t be bothered by gawking at a billion people and their assorted detritus. Enough already please.  I hate the taxis in Delhi; touts straight-faced lying to secure our fare. I hate the stinking train stations, where bare-footed men sweep piles of human shit off the rails, so that the next train can trundle in and replace it. I hate the mangy monkeys, the filthy platforms, the unrelenting lecherous stares and the sham sadhus waving their begging bowls. But I love the vibrancy of this chaotic, crowded country. Always bustling, scheming, watching, conniving… always something on the go. I love the life lived on the street, where pots spill onto pavements and dead grandmothers travel home by train. I love the lunacy of the cities, where a brightly painted elephant brings rush-hour traffic to a halt and cars flow like water around cattle contentedly chewing the cud in the middle of the road. I love the trains, ferrying millions – literally, millions – of people each and every day from distant corners. Jaisalmer, Rishikesh, Pondicherry, Varanasi… exotic names from far-off places. I love the chai-wallahs who advertise their small steaming cups of tea in a singsong lullaby late at night, as we rattle our way from Udaipur to Katni. I love the clean white sheets of the Gwalior Super Express, starched and left neatly for us in an envelope; a bedtime story from the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation. But I hate the rickshaw drivers who pounce on us the second we step off the train, shouting at us in Hindi (do I look like a local?) and tugging at my shirtsleeve. I hate the con man that meets us as we arrive back at the station, high on the sights of India. “Your train is cancelled,” he assures us. “All trains delayed by seven hours,” he promises. “Your carriage abducted by aliens,” he swears. “Come with me, I will help you”. I hate the lies that make me mistrust the helpful. I hate the cynical traveller I see in the mirror. I love the sights and scents of India: parathas sizzling in garlic and oil on a sidewalk, steaming naans straight from the tandoor. A handful of pakoras, spicy and oily, held happily in a handful of newspaper. I love the temples that seem from a different world than the filthy rubbish-strewn streets, and the glimpse of an iridescent sari as an elegant woman picks her way through the traffic. I love the peacocks that run wild in the countryside, like our own guinea fowl all dressed up for the ball. I love the ancient science of the Jaipur observatory, the regal Amber Fort, the ethereal Taj Lake Hotel, the sensual carvings at Khajuraho, and the romantic Taj Mahal. Oh god, the Taj Mahal. Words cannot describe it. Just go. Go and see it. But beware. I hate the man without uniform who ushers us onto the train at Agra, hassling and hustling us, shifting sheets and setting up seats. Setting the scene. His instructions a rattle like the wheels on the tracks. I hate my polite southern suburbs manners that make me turn from my bag to make space in the aisle. I hate the void that appears where he and my bag once were. Forsaking material goods may help me reach moksha and break the Hindu cycle of rebirth, but getting back to Delhi to catch my flight will be tricky with no passport, no money. I hate the man who left us like this on the platform. I hate him for bringing my wife’s anxious tears. But perhaps Shiva, the Destroyer, will help, sending him back to earth as one of the rats that forage in the fetid railway tracks below us. But all is not lost. As love would have it, the Indians are kind, I find. I love the locals who see just a person in need, not a traveller to be fleeced: the stationmaster who opens his wallet for our fare to Delhi, his deputy who offers a phone to call home. I love the working-class men in sleeper class. Ah yes, crowded sleeper class, I knew it well. I love the Sikh who hands over his mobile and refuses my rupees. The men who can’t afford our taxi fare, but beg us to have dinner with them. I love them, and the taxi driver who hears our sorry tale of thievery and is angered enough to share it with any rickshaw driver that will listen. I love the Hotel Swisston Palace, buried in the backstreets of Karol Bagh, where we find clean sheets and masala chai at 2am. I hate the traffic of Delhi that keeps us from the South African High Commission. A hateful herd of honking, spluttering asthmatic traffic that goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing. But we’re saved by a smile… the sweet smile of Ntombi Moyo; God’s gift to the Department of Home Affairs. In a World Cup of efficiency she’d be banned from entering, lest it skew the competition. I love the South African accent we find in the lobby; the warm smiles and local twang. How do I love thee, let me count the phrases. I hate the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office at 2.58pm on a Friday. The paper-pusher at counter #5 who picks her nose and throws our papers back at us. I hate the glint of tears I see forming in my wife’s eyes… useful though they may be. Our plane leaves in 7 hours; a passport with no visa means another four days in Delhi. I love that gent whose name I never caught; a gentle, moustachioed man who slips us in to use the government photocopier and eases our run through the red tape. A bureaucrat with compassion? Who’d have thought? I love the taxi that collects us from the hotel, bags packed and passports stamped. I love the sound of flight QR584 touching down on South African tarmac. I’d love to go back to India; holy rivers and high mountains still wait to be seen, but – I hate to say – I’m not yet sure I will, at least not with a backpack on my back. Perhaps in the next life? We’ll see what the gods – all 330 million of them – have in store. First published in Go! magazine, July 2010 Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites            |