Why India stole my heart

On our last day in New Delhi, few hours from going to the airport and flying back to South Africa, I wrote this note on my book while sitting in the back of a yellow taxi, looking outside the window to the busy carnival of people:
“It looks like the poverty of the entire world is here, even the dogs look poor. It looks like they are born poor and get poorer during the course of their lives, even with all that energy spent trying to survive. Everyone is continuously busy doing something: cooking an omelette, preparing chai tea, selling souvenirs or cleaning shoes, and everything happens on the side of the road. A loud, pungent and colourful human concert en plain air.”
Three weeks in India will leave many memories in your mind and soul, beautiful memories of colourful saris and paradise beaches and some less beautiful ones, memories that feel more like scars, of people sleeping on the side of the road and children with no future. But I wouldn’t erase any of those memories, not even the saddest ones, as they are inherently part of that amazing experience that has been visiting this touching and magnificent country.
India is all the things that you hear from other people’s stories, it’s messy, it’s chaotic, it’s poor, but it is also so much more, and this much more will make you love it and miss it the moment you land back home.
It’s beautiful natural landscapes in the North and white beaches touching the warm Arabian ocean in the South; it’s an infinite variety of delicious curries (lamb, mutton, chicken), soft and tasty paneer (local cottage cheese), delightful lassi (yougurt base drink) just to name few of the popular dishes; it’s friendly and warm people always looking to interact with foreigners and take some pictures with you and it’s a land of spiritual rejuvenation, where you can let your soul absorb peace and millennium of spiritual connection with the unknown (God or the Earth, as you might prefer?).