The other night I was lying awake thinking about the last few days, when I heard an extended, five minute, deep groan from a cow giving birth somewhere near. I thought to myself, another Holy Creature born, a shitting, smelly, fly attracting lump that will wonder the streets for the years to come adding to the filth. I was getting worked up, I still felt low from the past days' adventures when India once again showed me the other side. The side that isn't about the most breathtaking landscapes you can imagine, or the beautiful, immaculately dressed, people, or the cultural magic that lingers around the next corner. No, I was getting worked up about everything else.
- Why people shit right next to the road
- Why having a TV in a hotel room justifies quadrupling the price when clean bed sheets doesn't
- Why animals, especially dung spreading cows, are everywhere
- Why cars, bikes, rickshaws, buses, lorries, all drive to the accompanying sound of their own horn.
- Why well dressed, apparantly educated, men and women (and in front of their kids) throw plastics, paper, cups, wrappers, bottles etc staight out of the bus or train window as they finish using it.
- Why is it so dirty & filthy, dusty & noisy? When their religion is so beautifully emphasising the importance of universal equilibrium between man and nature, and between mind and body, then why can't these Holy Cow loving people see the direct result of their own actions?
I was only getting worked up as once again had the microscopic little bastards got inside me to turn my stomach inside out. Bacteria that lurks on a note, a fork, a door handle, a hand shake, or just in a badly washed pot before entering me without permission. Sorting out environmentally sound and hygenic infrastructure is a massive macro undertaking. But deciding to not take a shit next to the river that runs straight into the next village is not!
This time I got pinched in Pinjore, in a hotel lacking in pretty much everything, although it had a TV! Pinjore has a Mughal fountain garden split into seven levels that is not far off being as cool as the gardens leading you into Taj Mahal. The town attached to it is not quite as cool though. We cleverly stopped here to avoid the (according to Lonely Planet) expensive and low value hotels of Le Corbusier's modernist utopia of Chandigahr. Instead we hopped on the hour long commuter bus into town to explore this orthogonal gridded garden city on a day trip. The city has street signs and wide lush boulevards making it easy to move around in, it has also been divided into sectors by its master giving it a slightly scary Aldous Huxley feel. The imposing administrative buildings to the north (or "on top" of the masterplan) requires an architect's passion to see through the brutal use of concrete to some lovely ideas. Nek Chand's surreal rock and sculpture garden built from the debris of the ruined villages cleared to make way for the urban "masterpiece" was certainly the highlight, sorry Monsieur Corb, but I prefer your Villas.
At the end of the day we hid back in Pinjore Gardens to the soothing sound of fountains, whilst bats circled around us in the twilight, ready for the next journey to Rishikesh - 48 hours later we arrived. The first 36 were spent staring up into the pink cealing, or in my case down the stained toilet, of our Emerald Height Hotel room in Pinjore, whilst the very kind non-English speaking hotel staff were doing what they could to sort out food, or manhandle the shower into producing a dribble of hot water. The last 12 were spent on a sweaty, dusty bus, fighting a fever, with a (very cute) 1 year old hiding semi-chewed crisps in my hair whilst the driver was constantly spitting out the window half a meter in front of us slowly clouding his side window. Quick bus change in Haridwar, where Ruth spotted a hollow eyed monk in the station picking up a toothpick next to a Holy dung heap, and proceeding to clean his teeth, before I literally fell off the bus at our destination (I scraped my elbow).
A 30minute walk in the sticky evening to our hotel room greeted us as no rickshaws are allowed past a certain point in Swarg Ashram (in Rishikesh). This was followed by a heavenly shower and a meal I wish my body had taken in more of before this comical and hateful day was topped of with getting drenched in a thunderstorm.
The following night I was lying there awake, feeling weak from the humidity, still rehydrating, still willing my body to take in food again, and the sound of that new born Holy Cow had me worked up, I blamed its holy dung and people's acceptance of it everywhere, for my weak insides. But I reminded myself of our neigbhour Gary's wine-infused wisdom before we left Edinburgh.
"A bird is shivering on a branch in the approaching winter night, it's really weak and about to die. A cow walks past the tree and takes a shit just as the bird falls out of the tree unable to fly from being too cold. The bird lands in the shit and the warmth from it is enough to heat the bird up who survives the night. As the bird puts its beak through the shit in the morning to take a breath of fresh air, a fox strolls past and snatches the bird for breakfast and the bird dies."
What's the moral of the story you ask? Not all those who shit on you are bad, and not all those who pull you from the shit are to be trusted, but one thing is for sure - when you're in the shit, you need to keep your mouth shut!!
Welcome to India, you need to take the good with the bad, and keep your wits about you...
