Chai

I could say the heat hit me first; and it did. But the smell overwhelmed me more.
This mouldy stench that invaded every centimetre of each building and lingered on in the air was initially unpleasant but became like music in a restaurant - easy to forget.

Stepping off the plane in India, I had no expectation. I knew it was supposed to be busy.
The first thing I noticed were the stares.
I was a civilian celebrity; a fair haired, blue-eyed anomaly in a sea of black and brown.

Collecting our backpacks I remember feeling the dig of the straps into my shoulders; my eyes felt leaden and my legs sagged as the time zones caught up with me.
We piled into the 4wd taxi that smelled of India: mould, coconut oil, jasmine and heat.
Driving in India is like being welcomed to ‘Fast and Furious’ with a shitty car.

As the thick strip of bitumen road ended on either side of us, it gave way to dusty dirt and beyond that, the semblance of buildings.
Litter rested everywhere: rubbish made up the very dwellings people lived in.
Horns beeping everywhere, no lines on the road, no traffic lights, no lanes, no speeding cameras, no seat belts. No rules.
Just a road crowded with traffic and the occasional cow sitting calmly in the middle of it all.

Poverty.
Here it was right in front of me; people sleeping on the streets on cardboard, young children looking after a snotty-faced baby brother or sister, sat scrutinizing the world in rags, starving dogs and people scavenging alike, begging for the ability to even exist.

My exhaustion was whipped away as quickly as a monsoon downfall gives way to sunshine. I felt enchanted and horrified. My eyes couldn’t shut, there was too much to take in.
I could feel my adrenaline running rivulets through my arteries.

As we crossed a bridge with the water oozing under and beyond into the slums of Cochin, swerved around a cow and drove past a temple blaring Archana, our taxi abruptly pulled over.

A tin building sat stark in the dust beside the road, bananas flanked it and a dog sat by the door panting, a man was leaning against the doorway. In front of him stood two huge pots.
Masala Chai.
I had just seen life turned upside down and shaken out, yet stopping for tea just felt so nondescript.
Ahead of us lay the roads of cows, slums and the greater India - a journey of a thousand miles that should have begun with a single step.
Mine began with a careening car trip and a cup of chai.