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Why India?

INDIA | Friday, 9 March 2007 | Views [780]

When we laid out our travel plans to friends before leaving, the most common question we'd get was "why in the world are you going to India- with a world of places to choose from, you pick India?" Most peoples’ experience, if they've even been to India, is limited to a few days in a very overwhelming, intense city such as Delhi or Mumbai, transiting through on business. Worse, many people just use what they've seen in snippets on TV, of Mother Teresa’s Kolkata mission work with the city chaos and poverty, combined with refugee influx and post war population explosion, and have stigmatized what India is like. It's true, India is a difficult and challenging country to travel in; it's different from the Western world; there are millions of people crammed into cities; the infrastructure doesn't cater to traveling in a clean, well planned out plastic bubble of comfort; transportation is not easy to navigate on your own; multiple religions are in your face simultaneously; the experience assaults all your senses, simultaneously- smell, taste, sight, sound, touch; the standards of hygiene, safety/environmental and sanitation are far below what one has come to expect in the western world; combine all of these factors, and we can understand why people ask the question. We hope to paint a picture of India through our observations and experiences that displays the diversity of the places and people we visit. So why India? For the shear thrill of pushing ourselves to the very edge and beyond, of our comfort zone, to learn and grow our perspectives through a greater understanding of the beliefs, values, and customs of others.

Our challenge begins upon our arrival at Mumbai airport. Darrin’s luggage never showed up. You’d think Qantas could at least get bags from a one-segment flight, direct from Darwin to Mumbai, to the correct location. The paperwork and bureaucracy is miles thick, (even with simple bar codes on luggage tags) and after nearly two hours, and hard negotiating, we are finally given a complimentary men’s overnight pack. Darrin is formally now known as Qantas man, with his nifty cotton Qantas-logo t-shirt and boxers. It’s a good thing we’ve mastered washing laundry in bathroom sinks each night; the skills will come in handy. As if arriving after midnight with no luggage is not frustrating enough, the oh, so familiar scents and sounds of the Indian city streets add to the emotional rollercoaster. Immediately as we pass through the dirty glass doors of customs, you are propelled into the thick, humid, dusty air that swirls into the mix with petrol fumes, urine and burning trash alongside the road. The sound of auto horns pierce our ears… the horn I think is used more than the gas peddle here. Our cab swerves blindly through streets packed with auto-rickshaws, bicycles, trucks, cars, dogs, people and cows. This is India.

Tags: On the Road