So Many Things

I want to start by saying that this is the craziest place I have visited in my time on the road! And I love it! Nowhere will you see such a cornucopia of life happening in the streets, in the gutters, in the trees, in the homes. If you walk the equivalent of 1 city block you will see 10 things you never expected to see. In fact, you will miss a lot more than you actually do see! I am just now, after days of wandering around, able to read the signs, even though they are in English. It is that there is too much for you brain to process at first. The streets are packed with people and vehicles and animals and trash and animal shit and tea vendors and incense and almost anything else you can think up. But it just comes at you in ways you could never foresee. It's amazing, sortof like being a little kid again...just in wonder of the differences.

(Dad, you would hate it here! Ha ha!)

I have been really digging on the food. A lot of dahl and naan. Chana masala, paneer, aloo and gohbi. My usual suspects, but better, cause it's here. Today I tempted the fates by eating with a big group of Indian people in a complete hole in the wall. (Not a joke, a REAL hole in the wall.) I had the variety platter which is what they were all having, and it was delicious, even while burning a section out of my stomach lining. It was naan and rice with three pools of food, and wow was it tasty. The Indians all got a kick out of me liking spicy food. In fact, I was the hit of the trip we were on, all of them asking lots of questions and wanting to take photos with the gringo. This has happened a bunch of times now. Not just with these semi-acquaintences I had made. I was at the burial place of Mahatma Ghandi and three dudes pounced on me for a photo-op on a bench. I laughed a bit with them and then took some tough-guy photos with them. I took off my glasses for the shots and for the last one the kid put my glasses on and just loved it! It was a riot.

I had wanted to go on a trip around the city since I didn't have a lot of time here. I asked the G'ed out guy at the front desk of my guesthouse about it and he arranged it. I got 'picked up' at 9 this morning by a fat man in a tight white shirt. He waved me out the door and we set off to find the vehicle, which I, like an idiot, thought would be in the vecinity of the hotel. It wasn't. So we walked through the muddy streets of ghetto Pahar Ganj for fifteen minutes before arriving at a massive thoroughfare, where the roar of traffic almost drowned out his passive command to 'Wait here.' I was standing on a moist pile of garbage which was being bound by a fair amount of animal (and maybe human) feces. I was on this pile because the rest of the area was under standing water. I waited perched with about ten other indian dudes for a while. And then it started to rain. They want you to be happy so I was pulled back against a building with the group into an area that was indeed dry, but that smelled like the mouth of a dirty urinal. After about 20 minutes, the fat man returned, pointed across the madness, and said 'You go there!' So I froggered my way across the gnar and entered a bus marked 'Tourist'. I was greeted on this bus by the glances of about 20 Indians. I turned to the guy who takes the tickets and asked where this bus was going. Was it leaving the city? Where were the other gringos? Turns out it was the right bus, and there were no other gringos. Which really is the way you want it to be right? Hangin' with the locals! But the gentleman who ended up being out guide was under the strange impression that I was a fluent speaker of Hindi! Or at least this is what I assumed because even though he looked at me a lot, he only addressed the group in Hindi.

We visited some really cool places but I didn't get a whole lot of info on them. Mostly, I got to know some of the others in the group and enjoyed their enthusiasm. We went to a bunch of temples and resting places and the Indira Ghandi Museum. The tour ended up being 10 hours long!! And we seemingly crossed the whole of Delhi, which is a sprawling place.

I saw so many things that were as random as can be...and laughed out loud a couple times. Like when seeing a tuk tuk named after pro wrestler John Cena...I thought of Adam when I saw the Jindal Hotel International written in huge bright pink neon letters. (The next great hope of the Republican Party...for all of two seconds...later Bobby, Bobby Jindal!! Mister Rogers...) There are street barbers who will give your beard a shave right there amongst the cows and garbage in the gutter too. The list could go on.

At one point I had an exciting little adventure during the afternoon. I was low on money and needed to hit an ATM. They charge a lot more for gringos to enter the temples...in the case of Qutb, it was 25 times more for me than for the locals. Not saying it isn't fair, because it is fair, but at this particular place I did not have enough to get in. We had a half an hour to see the place...not long enough really, but we were on a schedule! Not a punctual schedule...a lot of hurry up and wait...but still, you tell an American a time to be there and he is there.

So some guy near the entrance tells me where there is an ATM. In the next township. So I get a tuk tuk with my last rupees and head that way. Turns out it is not so close. We drive and drive. Through cows and people and bazaars and more cows. When we get there and locate the ATM, it is not working. But this takes time to figure out. I am starting to feel the time crunch and am now almost completely out of money. I get back into the tuk tuk and go back empty handed to the temple.

It was a big place and there were busses everywhere. Because of the Hindi speaking guide I did not know where the bus would be...I was looking for familiar faces from the bus but only saw a sea of Indians. I had no watch and in my head the thirty minutes had passed. So I walked back and forth to the three places I thought he might go. Nothing. I was starting to panic because my backpack was on the bus and if it was gone, it was gone. Time passing, me walking, me sweating like a bastard in the 100 degree sun and humidity. Finally I saw the red paint-dabbed forehead of a familiar face. An older lady from the tour decked out in blue and yellow robes. She smiled at me and I walked over and she was with about 14 of the others, sitting in the shade. "Do you know where the bus is?" she asked. I just laughed. They were clueless too. Nevertheless the bus came and found us. My bag was there and I hit an ATM later. But it was a good little heart-stopper.

And the final thing I wanted to write today has to do with the job outsourcing to India from America. I had a talk over lunch with a cool Indian dude from the north and he asked me about Obama. I told him what I thought and asked him the same question. He said, "Good for the world, bad for India." This was, of course, in reference to Obama's desire to keep jobs in America. But I told him I wasn't so sure it would work.

Here in India, you get the feeling that if we have to compete against them, we will lose. Not because they are better educated, or more talented in general, but because they will work 10 times as hard, for basically no money. (By western standards.) These dudes are hustlers...capitalists in so many ways. There are side 'businesses' attached to everything you see. For example, I have this cool kid that comes to my hotel room door every night at 9 o'clock to see if I want a beer. (Beer is not as easy to find here and not legal to drink in most hotels. The kid is an employee of the hotel but he operates this on the side because he knows he can.) If I do, he goes and gets it for me. A big beer. I found out that for him it costs 40 rupees...less than a dollar, but he knows that for us it costs more. And so we are happy to see it cost a dollar or two, because where we are from it would be 5. Plus, even knowing the real cost I still give him more 'cause he is a cool little dude who is going out and making it happen. Imagine this in many other part of life...there are people working this kind of thing in every dimension of life here.

So, if it comes down to greedy business owners in the west wanting to save money on payroll, making a decision based on bottom line, we will lose. If there is nationalism involved, maybe fewer will send those jobs to India, but it if is just based on money, they will go. In the long-run this should be a concern. Not that I care because you can't outsource good food!

Another part of the conversation was based on my question, 'how can you be a buddhist/hindu and be a capitalist at the same time?' The values seem almost contradictory. His answer was interesting, but I think it is an entry for another day...this has gotten long.

Really enjoying India.