My Travel Writing Scholarship 2011 entry - Journey in an Unknown Culture

theworldisabook — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 05:27:00 GMT

Just an hour before, I had been up in the air, staring out to a sea of blue roofs. Now I had landed, drowning in oppressive heat, as a skinny Indian man urged me to follow him to my taxi. He heaved my bag into the boot and held the door open for me, flashing a speckled-brown smile.

‘Welcome to Bombay,’ he said. Then he held his palm out through my open window.

‘One pound.’

The taxi driver began to back out; my helper backed out with him, tightly closed fingers flickering like a fish out of sea.

‘Please. Madam.’ Flustered, fatigued, I thrust money I did not yet understand into his hand. As the taxi driver rushed forward, I looked behind me; his fingers still flickered for more.

Second later, stuck in a taxi line, a smaller arm reached through my window. At the end of it was a matted child, four or five years old, staring up at me with dirty-yellow eyes and expressionless lips. She casually held a baby in her other arm.

‘One dollar,’ she asked me, her eyes as large as coins. I shook my head slowly.

‘One euro. One pound.’ She grabbed my wrist. ‘One bracelet. ’
My hand grazed my wrists, half removing one of my bracelets. Unable to resist, I locked eyes with the little girl, our mutual stare stretching like rubber as the taxi driver sped out of Mumbai Airport.

The air was tinged with a weary yellow. A crinkled cigarette between his fingers, the driver shouted an unfamiliar language- Hindi, perhaps- into his mobile phone. No seat-belt to keep me safe; instead I moved with the taxi’s stop-start rhythm. Yellow and green auto-rickshaws somehow scuttled in between the madness, like ants dodging spilled soda. My ears were punctured by a chorus of horns. No light-indicators in sight; I soon realized you needed to be heard to be seen.

As I turned to my left, I found myself passing that sea of blue roofs. From the safety of the plane, I had not seen this swarm of people that tussled and hustled on the streets. I had not seen the rusty corrugated metal shacks. I had not seen the crumpled beggars at their doorsteps, the children skipping over loose wires, the men in ripped vests sipping 'chai' on the streets. Suddenly, a truck obstructed my view; 50 or more workers were crushed into the back like cattle, spilling out onto the sides. Their laughs punctuated the smoky air.

Under a bridge, I discovered another world. A burst of Hindi music echoed around me: the first piece of India I recognized. Men and women, dreaming of Bollywood, flailed their arms and stamped their feet on top of a sweet-smelling rubbish pile.

Watching their wild dance until they were distant dots, I was brought sharply back to earth by the driver’s abrupt yell. From his wide-eyed stare, I guessed that we were lost. It didn’t matter; I had lost myself in Mumbai already.

Photos: China, December 2010

theworldisabook — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 07:42:00 GMT

Photos: Nepal November 2010

theworldisabook — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Annapurna circuit trek to the Thorong-La pass, the highest mountain pass in the world at 5,416m.

The World Is A Book...

My Travel Writing Scholarship 2011 entry - Journey in an Unknown Culture

Photos: China, December 2010

Photos: Nepal November 2010