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India |
| The rickshaw driver’s expert skill at dodging swerves us out of the path of an oncoming truck just in the nick of time. We swerve and bump hard into a pothole as a bull materializes to the left, calmly ruminating some tarry substance from a pile of trash in the middle of the street. Motorcycles lurch in and out of the surging crowd, hawkers, street people, fruit stands, holy men, beggars, tiny children selling strings of beads….they all seem to instinctually flow into the tiny bits of space that open momentarily. It’s very unsettling to be bumping along in it as the whole scene boils like a cauldron under the glaring sun. When we finally arrive to the Ghats , I look down and notice that I’ve crushed the coke can in my hand into an hourglass shape. |
 x In the streets of Varanasi.
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This is Varanasi . The Mecca of Hindus, a holy city to which the devout flock to douse themselves in vermillion powder and immerse in the sacred waters of the Ganges . Wading through the swarm of street children hawking everything from fans to beads to colored powder, we board one of the numerous boats waiting for visitors at the banks. As we float into the gathering twilight, I take in the sight before me. Gaunt holy men in saffron loincloths meditate serenely on concrete platforms, oblivious to the women pounding laundry alongside. Incense snakes through the air, addressing a variety of other odors I dared not question. Devotees tenderly offer floating pujas to the river – tiny lights in paper cups of marigolds ferry |
| prayers to the gods, while just a few meters upstream, cadavers smolder in the matter-of-fact cremation ritual as old as this ancient city itself. Hope meets Resignation, Life and Death circle each other in a macabre dance that invoked something sublime in me – something ancient and unspeakable, something beautiful and terrible at the same time. |
Silently, we observe the scene on the banks, while our boatman rows closer and closer to the cremation sites. The smoke burns my eyes and fills my lungs with someone’s yesterday. Through it all, there is no observable mourning. No wails or cries fill the air, just an eerie stillness that welcomes the oncoming night like a friend. I look down at the puja in my hands; it is time to light it, but first I must distance myself from Death. I ask the boatman to put us back into the current – away from the smoke and remnants of shrouds and floating garbage and men in loincloths panning for the gold out of the teeth of the Dead. |
The India I saw, Delhi/Agra/Varanasi, is a land of extremes. In the blink of an eye, one goes from glittering Palace to festering Shanty, from the delicate, timeless nobility of the Taj Mahal to the sensory assault of the chaos choking the crumbling streets. In the eyes of its children, one sees innocence and human dignity crushed under the weight of debilitating poverty. The same insistent children whose postcards I finally bought could not follow me through the gates of the Taj Mahal; this is a feast of beauty to which they, the monument’s rightful heirs, are not invited. The dirty little secret that I share with most tourists is probably the relief felt upon entering its gates. Inside lies serene splendor, cocooned from the onslaught outside. |
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Whirling at the Taj Mahal - before being chased away by guards.
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And so it went for an entire week. Alternating waves of awe and frustration. Choking traffic jams in which, again, every conceivable open space would be seized by vehicles going in every which direction. But the reward after two hours of this was the encounter with priceless artifacts from a distant era – gloriously serene sculptures of Buddha showing distinct Greco-Roman influence, alongside a remarkably well-preserved sandstone Wheel of Life from the same period. An 8-hour night train ride from Agra to Varanasi put us into daylight tired and bleary-eyed only to be descended upon by bickering cab drivers, shouting and cursing for the honor of being the one to overcharge us for the cab ride to the hotel. It seemed every time I would reach my hotel, I would collapse into its welcoming, cool, sitar-sweetened atmosphere. I knew it was fake atmosphere, but for the time being, it was salve on my overcharged, adrenaline-flooded soul. |
Be prepared. India is expensive for Malaysians. I was looking at tie-dyed silk scarves at one shop and asked the vendor the price. He quoted 1,200 rupees – RM 100! I thought “Ai yo, you can get it cheaper in Little India, lah!” But I’m not stupid. Every item I ended up buying I haggled to half price - can lah, can. Hotels are charged in USD. Expect to pay around 150 USD per night for a four star, but the four stars in India are very nice. Pools, masseurs, sitar players, aromatherapy oils, the works. Even though the tuk-tuk rides will scare you halfway to your grave, they are much cheaper than the taxis. For an example, a taxi asked as for 350 rupees to drive us a mile down the road to our friends’ hotel – RM 30! We went low-brow and got a tuk-tuk for 50 rupees, less than RM 5.
So, if you’re in the mood for a relaxing getaway where you can feast your overworked soul on a steady diet of serenity and beauty, I would say get thee to an island and sit thee on the beach and don’t move. If you’re ready for a wild ride that will push your limits, stretch your character and soul and finances and patience, then maybe you’re ready for India. I thought I was. But I will probably spend the rest of my life processing everything I saw and felt in India. To put into perspective the beautiful and the pitiful, and to marvel at how it all seems to function, in spite of itself. |
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Copyright © 2006-2008 Yalla Bina!. All rights reserved.
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