Cha Chi Makes Good Business

India conjures image of the profound. It is assumed that once she is under your skin you will undoubtedly be awash with epiphanies and enlightenment. I found my awash in many things …filth, sweat, rickshaw drivers…but never awash with blinding revelation; for me that all came much later. Instead, it was the inane rather than the profound that shaped my days leaving me in a constant state of bemused headshaking laughter at the stupidity I found myself a part of – laughter being the only stop gap between you and insanity.

Divine patience is a pre-requisite if planning to spend any time in Asia. I am lead to believe that the Fairy Godmother of this fine attribute did not attend my birth and laughter became my weapon of choice. It doesn’t take long to learnt that to laugh is to survive days potholed with frustration, bewilderment, and seething anger that is India’s daily diet. It also helps to keep your karmic state unsullied by tearful outbursts at poor unsuspecting rickshaw wallahs, who, due to some horrible injustice in their lives, seem always to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and frequently bore the brunt of my rage. One way or another, India had me in tears or laughter, but rarely did I find myself in the state of guru style bliss most fitting the home to yoga and meditation.

This country does not sneak up on you slowly, she pounces within an instant of arrival in her humid, dusty, chaotic cities. She is not a country that hides her face behind mass tourism, high rise hotels and lawn gardens. She grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shakes you hard till your head reels and your brain rattles and every orifice is full of dust. In fact my first step onto Indian territory gave me the distinct impressions I was in for quite a ride. You prepare yourself for culture shock. People tell you about their holiday in Goa, where, yes, there really were cows wandering along the beach. You buy the Rough Guide/Lonely Planet, and you watch Gandhi the movie and read a Salman Rushdie novel, but when the first thing you see as you enter the arrivals lounge at Delhi airpor, is a pregnant cat strolling casually by, you are struck quite suddenly by the searing realisation that nothing can ever prepare you for the real thing.

And so there I am, at the thresh hold of a new life, my passport newly stamped, chaos all around and the profoundest thing in my mind is why nobody else is concerned by the airport cat, or even seems to notice its presense. I assume that in a country where a cow wandering along the train tracks is considered to be normal and not a cause for a State Of National Emergency (trains are so late there is always at least a day to get the cow out of harms way), a cat bares very little relevance.

NB Ironically enough, it happened to be one of only two cats I ever saw in six months in India. This did cause a little concern as it left me wondering whether ‘goat’ was a rather generic term on the menu!!!!

The cat incident filed for future reference, I decide that maybe I should find my transfer to the hotel. Due to what can solely be providence extending her one and only leg up of the whole 180 days, there was a man waiting for me with a placard bearing my name. I am swiftly ushered into an air-conditioned vehicle and head straight into a 1am Delhi traffic jam. Not what I’d anticipated! I had come face to face with the infamous Indian truck – a true feat of engineering ingenuity. A challenge to all laws of physics and aero dynamics. The King of the Road. Every vehicle is nose to tail in a convoy of a smoking roaring beeping carnivalesque monsters decked out in last years Christmas decorations and Diwali paper chains. And from each belching lorry a collection of ubiquitous elephant gods and blue goddesses designed to protect jangle happily. However, it is clear that the only thing that could truly protect these drivers with a death wish other than a very strong belief in reincarnation is the illusive seat belt. This strange anomaly comes in many forms and can be worn in an assortment of inventive ways, most bearing very little in common with the classic style of over the shoulder, around the waist and into a lock. There is normally a strap of some kind, often worn in a nooselike manner, perhaps for a quick painless death in case of an emergency. Few are connected at both ends to anything of a stable nature and most are held together by a collection of elastic bands, string and blind faith! More compulsory than the inadequate seatbelt is a string or two of good luck marigolds. These tended to hold you in better favour with the gods than some strange western contraption.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 at 9:46 am and is filed under Travel. 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.