All the Roadrunning

The clear highlight of my third dentist appointment in this fine city was when the sharp, inch-and-a-half drill bit popped off inside my mouth and flew into the depths of my throat, providing me with a most intriguing glimpse into the last actions and sounds of a person choking to death. Of course it also took three attempts to make a successful impression of my lower teeth, with the doctor actually having to chase me down the road as I was hailing a rickshaw in order to drag me back upstairs to redo the mold. And of course a dentist trainee was given the task of preparing my tooth for the impression, unfortunately finding himself the recipient of a severe reprimand by the actual dentist upon showing her his work. ¨Too sharp, what is this? Too sharp, look at these edges, much too sharp!¨ she yelled in English, shaking her head along with an audible ¨Tsk, tsk, tsk¨ while proceeding to correct his errors.

Only one more appointment left, tomorrow evening, and my dental troubles shall be over, or perhaps just beginning, if this experiment with Indian dentistry proves to be a failure.

Returning to Delhi from the mountains…The sleeper compartment I had reserved for the bus journey would certainly have been glorious had I been a four-year old child. But a human of my size was obviously not the intended passenger of the bus designers. For most of the ride I had one foot hanging out of the window and one leg hanging over the other edge, most surely to the disappointment of the person below whose face my foot was dangling in front of. I remained in a twisted position for the 13 hours, unable to find room among the randomly placed metal bars on both sides of me to turn over. The constant bumpiness of the roads and the resulting rattling of my metal bed, also helped ensure a bout of nausea remained looming in the gut.

However, my ´neighbors´ in the two double compartments next to me happened to be a most happy entourage of four Buddhist monks from Thailand. They had all randomly met in the mountains, all on separate journeys to study Buddhism in India, but now they were traveling back to Delhi as a group. Its random enough when two Americans meet up in a remote Indian mountain village, never mind four independently traveling, orange-robed Thai monks.

During our 10pm ´now you rest break´ and the 2am ´Toilet, dinner break´, I sat with the monks at roadside food stalls, snacking on coconut cookies and mango shakes. It was refreshing to be in the presence of such constant smiling and carefree laughter, something I realized is not too common in every day scenes in India. But on this long journey, it was a most pleasant escape, reminding me of my wonderful days in Thailand and the culture that fosters such happy people. Every time I re-boarded the bus, ready to begin the next leg of the trip, I brought with me some of the monks´ positive energy, which helped me endure the discomfort and pain of being forced into a contortionist. But I cannot lie, my mind wandered often, as the interactions with the monks also caused me to question why on earth I was headed to the 110 degree, pre-monsoon Delhi heat and not to the beaches of Thailand!

The air cooler in my room right now is spitting out boiling hot air, simply unable to combat the temperatures outside. Four showers a day and about six liters of water keeps my brain cool enough to function semi-normally for brief periods of time. I burn off my meals even before I finish eating them, with the sweat pouring off my face by the gallon. As I gulp down glassful after glassful of cold fruit juices and yogurt shakes, I find it amazing that Indians are still drinking 27 cups of steaming hot chai every day.

I am off for dinner, to a rooftop cafe where dozens of half-melted people stare into the distance in silence, at times muttering a few incomprehensible words to themselves in between bites of vegetarian curries. In Delhi during this season, meals take two hours to complete, not because of the slowness of the chefs, but due to the inability of the diners to summon the motivation to lift their rears from the seat and head to their next destination.

In the end, however, even this seemingly unenjoyable aspect of India plays a vital role in creating the entire experience that somehow remains as addicting to me as Dunkin Donuts is to Bostonians.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 at 8:14 am and is filed under India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.