Sandy Does The Subcontinent

Warning: if you aren’t in the mood to listen to me vent, please skip this entry.

While despising an entire country is probably never fully justified, I have had a perfect storm of frustrations. It started when I was leaving the train station in Gaya – in my exhaustion I slipped and took a really bad fall down the slick marble stairs, with about three of the edges slamming me in the lower back. The impact was so hard that I blacked out briefly. I was terrified for a moment that I’d broken something in my back or somehow concussed myself. I looked up, half expecting help struggling out of the heavy pack and to my feet, since I was shaking so hard I couldn’t quite manage it, but aside from some blank staring, the crowds of passengers were just stepping over me. I realized in complete terror that I could die right there and no one would do anything except steal my stuff. I have never, ever seen such a total lack of compassionate humanity in people’s eyes in my life, and frankly, what I saw scared me. It was not the best opening to a stint of solo travel.

Aside from residual pain in my back, neck and shoulders, and not being able to lift my right leg, I pulled out of the physical effect in a day or so but the psychological impact wasn’t so easy to shake. It doesn’t help that everyone – and I mean everyone – here lies all the time, from the guy at the post office to people at the internet cafe. I would bet my life savings that if I went and asked right now how much a bottle of soda cost, they would say 25 rupees, even though the maximum retail price is printed clearly as 20. At least they’re consistent.

When they’re not lying, they’re just generally harassing you, unless of course they’re sleepy and then they just part their eyes enough to wave you dismissively out of their open shop before going back to having a snooze. Now I understand that Bihar is one of, if not the, poorest states, but I’d really like to retain at least a few of my liberal illusions, like the one that says poverty does not necessarily engender a culture of grotesquely dishonest, lazy and aggressive people.

Oh and then I started my period. So add cramps to the already awesome pain cocktail happening in my body. I took some ibuprofin before going to sleep, telling myself that everything would seem a lot brighter in the morning.

But morning, as it turned out, was 2:30am, when I woke up with a familiar feverish, nauseated feeling. I immediately made myself throw up, and once I was convinced I had everything out for the moment, I took an antibiotic and mixed a bottle of oral rehydration solution. I was lucky to treat is so quickly because the glimpse of the intestinal trauma known as ‘Delhi belly’ I got during the next nine hours was shocking enough to put me off the idea of eating until I get back to Stef’s next week. The only thing holding me back from the ledge of sheer self-pitying panic as I dozed fitfully was the comforting sound of English-language channels on TV, whereupon the cable promptly went off for the first time since I got here two days ago, and stayed off.

I can’t say I’m surprised I got sick, though. There is something palpably unhealthy up here. People look unhealthy, animals look unhealthy; there’s something foul in the hot wind. Compared to the south, it feels diseased, almost sinister. And that’s saying something in a country that on the whole fails to grasp even the most basic concepts of sanitation or hygiene. Many a Howard Hughest freakout has been brought on so far by suddenly remembering that people wipe their asses with their hands and then don’t wash with soap. Every time I even think about this, I have to dump like half a bottle of sanitizer on my hands. The justification is some nonsense about only using their left hands and water being more efficient than toilet papers. Um, sure. And it will probably remain a huge mystery why there’s so many diseases here. Just as long as they don’t look at me like I’m an ape the next time I accidentally use my left hand to accept something. I certainly wouldn’t be pointing any poo-y fingers if the situation were reversed.

But it still took more to break me…it took the power going out (which it does constantly) at the height of the 110 degree afternoon. For some reason the generator didn’t kick in so there I was, weak and feverish in the crushing heat, battered by every kind of pain, laying alone in a room that smelled like a sewer. And that, friends, was when I finally had the inevitable “I Hate India” moment. The end.

Tags: Bodhgaya

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