Incredible India is Still Incredible!

Incredible India is still Incredible!

As I look out from my dusty and dirty train window, I am in awe and wonderment as to how this once grand and majestic empire has fallen so low. I am travelling from Abu Road to Delhi. Delhi, which was once known as the land of angels, is today more like the land of dirt and dumps! Yet India has a charm, a sweetness, a sense of peace and freedom like nowhere else. It is unique in that it has the rugged Himalayan mountains in the north, the warm deep oceans in the south and every other landscape you can imagine in between. It has a tremendous variety of languages, religions, traditions, cultures, costumes and gastronomy all melded together – it truly is incredible!

India to me resembles an extremely old and battered lady who has witnessed an incredible history throughout her lifetime! From the purity, beauty and innocence of childhood to marriage and motherhood, to divorce, to emancipation once again, and finally, being robbed and raped.

Along my train journey I see many contrasting and paradoxical sights and scenes. Plenty of western brand headquarters, modern high rise buildings nestled in green parks and valleys, and Maersk steel containers, implying that India is on the move! And yet in several other areas, plenty of poverty: people living by sewers in decrepit shacks, homeless people selling balloons or bananas simply to be able to eat a roti for the day. Street children dotted with flies and filth, whiling their time away by the roadside.

The train stops at a station for ten minutes (normally it stops only for two!). Quite a few take up this opportunity for a stretch break away from the air conditioning to go into the sweaty and smelly air of the dusty platform! All of life is happening in front of us. Someone is brushing his teeth with a neem stick, another is returning from having bathed courtesy of Indian Railway Water works, one or two are doing their personal business against the wall of the platform. Dreadlock-haired ascetics are begging for their next meal, whilst nomadics are mushroomed together in groups on the floor with their few belongings.

The enthusiastic food sellers make good business during this short time! Fresh hot meals are coming off the stove, both baked and fried. From a distance it seems that every item, salty and sweet, is smothered with raisins, until the ‘raisins’ actually begin to fly away!

The tea stand is another oddity. It would never pass the health and hygiene regulations in the west. The tea seller is making tea in an old silver hexagonal recycled tin can. The cups are washed over and over again in the same water throughout the day! Yet the customers are happy as they sit on makeshift stools, sipping their strong Indian chai and idling away their time.

In India, there is no monopoly on the roads. Only in India can you find cars, bicycles, rickshaws, elephants, camels, bullocks, cows, dogs and more, all happily sharing the same highway. And that’s not to mention the scooters with whole families and their belongings piled up on top! This level of understanding and cooperation on the roads is hardly to be seen anywhere else. The animals in particular are treated with a gentle reverence and respect.

Having sat with several drivers throughout my trip, I marvel that no one curses the other for cutting in, or displaying what we would deem in the west as bad driving manners! They just waltz around each other – it’s truly a dance, and it all happens with good grace! Not only is it amazing to see, it also teaches the rest of us how to stay calm and to go with the flow!

India is perhaps the only place I have seen where anyone can sleep almost anywhere: in the middle of traffic, by the highway, along a train track, or on a camel cart. And it also seems that along with a peaceful sleep, these people, and Indians generally, have a peace of mind that is rare to see.

Baniyon Tree – the branches fall and become roots, creating a new tree or expansion of the current one. Quite commonly found all over India

India truly is incredible in all the meanings of the word. And the most amazing thing is that, chaotic as it seems, it all just seems to work.

It’s time… to learn that there can be calm in the midst of chaos and harmony in diversity. Make the most of what you have, and like the Indians, just walz through life!

© ‘It’s Time…’ by Aruna Ladva, BK Publications London, UK