Introducing India
Somehow I forgot I was going to India. My flights were so long; flight one taking me to Moscow, flight two to my final destination, Delhi, that when I got off the second plane, I just wanted to clean myself up before facing a new place.
There had been no lights visible from the window of the plane and we were supposed to be landing in five minutes. Where were all the lights? Suddenly, they were there, bright pockets of stars, a Delhi constellation, shining dimly under our wings. But city lights seen from up above are still starry dreams until sky and ground merge. As we merged with the lights, and landed, (there was clapping when we landed in Moscow; none in Delhi) I left the plane and walked through the white tunnel to the airport. I was hit with a wall of heat, not unpleasant at 4 a.m. Only 23 degrees Celsius. Delhi had been having 44 degree days for the past two weeks.
Before facing Indian reality I just wanted to wash my face, use the washroom and then brace myself for the touts and taxi scams. I walked in and there was an attendant in a spotlessly clean washroom. Relief. As I opened the stall door, it hit me. I couldn’t prepare myself for Indian reality, it had occurred when I wasn’t looking, when sky and ground merged. The toilet was a hole in the ground, with two spots for your feet and a tap on the left hand side. A single mosquito buzzed in the stall. Worrying about toilets was one of the only things that got to me before I left, but this was it. I wanted to embrace the differences I face here, and I did, squatting down and hoping for the best. With no toilet paper, the tap is used to wash your left hand. Coming out of the stall victoriously dry, I washed my face, reminded myself to wait to brush my teeth with bottled water later, and stepped out for customs and getting my bag and changing money.
The Delhi Taxi Police are the people you want to take you to your hotel in Delhi. A ride to Pahar Ganj should be about 200-300 Rs. I was fortunate enough to meet a wonderful woman on the plane who offered to drive me to my hotel in Pahar Ganj, even though she was driving to Chandigarh with her husband. The hour and a half drive, one way, was out of her way, and I was so exhausted that if it’s possible, my grateful outcries were excessive.
Sonia, the woman I met on the plane, lives in Toronto for six months of the year, and in Chandigarh for the other six. She is working to bring her husband and one year old baby over. Our girltalk on the plane had kept me centered as I made up fantasies about her husband showing up with flowers, her welcome home straight out of a Bollywood film. But Sonia protested, saying that Sunny wouldn’t bring her flowers, and would say he couldn’t because the stores wouldn’t be open at that time of night. I joked about her running off with a fantastical lover named Hans who, I would sadly inform Sunny, had taken her to Malta, while I was his new wife. We giggled over the inadequacies of Aeroflot service and food and wondered why we had taken that flight. Even though I wouldn’t fly Aeroflot again, I wouldn’t trade that flight for the world. I made a friend faster than even I thought possible.
Sonia flies her Toronto-Delhi flight a different way each time. Because she can’t afford to travel, she takes flights that stop off in exotic destinations, like London and Amsterdam. On her flight with British airways, she was thrilled to have flown over and seen the Sahara. This time she was so excited to be able to say that, if for only a few hours, she had been in Moscow. Her next flight she wanted to be via Paris. She’s always wanted to see Paris.
Sonia and I went outside, walking, mercifully, past the shouts of “Taxi? You want Taxi?” to meet Sunny. Afraid he wasn’t there, Sonia began to worry, but a large man with a bulbous nose and a big smile met us and the two lovers were reunited as I stood awkwardly to one side and looked on. Sonia asked why there were no flowers, and Sunny said, “Ah, I couldn’t – no stores are open at this time!” We burst out laughing, as I told Sunny his wife knew him well. Boys followed us to the car, hoisting the bags into the tiny vehicle that would keep stalling with the weight the entire drive to Pahar Ganj and Sunny handed them some rupees. Driving directly over the yellow line in the road, Sunny sped like any Indian driver, his hand on his horn at 4 a.m., making U-turns at places marked No U-turn, right in front of the Delhi Traffic Police. We made our way into Delhi, and it began again. So many beginnings.
Stray dogs, shanty towns, ads in jumbled English, the smell of dust rising in the heat of construction, thin men on bicycles and then the cows. One, two, three, I saw six by the time I got to the hotel, and having been here 24 hours the number has become countless. A fixture of the Pahar Ganj streets along with shit, rickshaws, ice cream in orange ice cream cones, the horns of bicycles, rickshaws, and cars, piles of mangoes, bananas, fried snacks, and bejeweled woven bags are cows cows cows. And as we were arrived at my hotel at six in the morning, I stood up and realized my bum was itchy. The lone mosquito in the washroom at the airport had bit me in the bum.
Welcome to India, Emily.
