Roadtripping

India is unforgettable in the way that the senses are overwhelmed, struggling to keep up with all that is crashing in. Doctors tell me that there are five senses. I don't believe them. Perhaps that is true elsewhere on the globe, but in India, there are at least eighteen million senses. Doctors also tell me that first impressions are made in ten seconds, often irreversibly. This I believe with all my heart. With all sincerity and all futility, an attempt to capture just ten seconds of time will be made.
India is like a water balloon in the face; unexpected, leaving the senses momentarily shell-shocked, only to be thrown back into a world of chaos and flying colors launched across the sky. Colors, sounds, movement, scents and flavors are intensified here, and it is with incredible ease that one can slip into a stupor, just watching the world pass by. In actuality, this world does not pass by, it careens.
The human eye can absorb a certain spectrum of colors, but the streets of Rajasthan seem to defy Newton at will. Turquoises, golds, reds, sunflower oranges splash casually across the landscape, strings of flowers hang out of the windows and freshly laundered saris play in the hot breeze.
The people, like their colors, exist within another dimension as well. The women, living mirages, bend in the sunlight and men, tall and dark, dart in and out of the city crowds. The street children, coated liberally with dust of the city, scamper about pedestrians and flash coy smiles.
Motorcycles groan, cars screech and our rickshaw chuckles as we weave precariously. Cows meander into our path, camels proudly display their pearly whites and the temple elephants trumpet their holiness. The crossfire of Hindi words is piercing, and the occasional accented English word can be captured, before it floats away. The sharp scent of gasoline slithers around ankles, shaking hands with curries and spices as it pervades the sizzling air.
I tell those ten seconds in English, but they should be experienced with the five senses, and then the other thirteen million. A Portuguese word, saudade, means a longing for a lost love. Those ten seconds flew away, and just a memory is left, limited by the boundaries of language and a 2500 character limit, spaces included. First impressions are buried treasures; the empty ache of not holding the real gold lingers, but knowing that those ten seconds are stashed safely, unforgettably, in the depths of my mind is comforting nonetheless.