India All Over Again

Only now, this evening, am I in a state to fairly represent my first (again) impressions of India. I am refreshed tonight, after having a yummy noodle soup for lunch, a chai and a bidhi, and a much needed meditation in a Tibetan Buddhist temple (where my attention was held with the chanting, chiming, drumming, and cymbal whacking of four monks). And, we leave Delhi (finally) tomorrow afternoon.

I slept poorly last night, having a hard time dispelling a feeling of discomfort and dread and a voice that kept telling me I needed to escape the nightmare. Yesterday, Delhi was a very, very old woman with sagging skin and filthy torn rags, the remnants of a firey sari, hanging from her hundred long limbs. Her breath, hot and putrid, surrounds her with a grimy black smog. She begs as she squats in a dark puddle, bits of bright plastic rubbish floating near her black-mucked toenails. Her eyes are blank, empty, her voice so hoarse it is nonexistent. Her wretchedness is ignored and forgotten. Traffic in the darkness, rickshaw riding trying not to inhale fumes of exhaust and shit. It is hard to believe the traffic even moves, so many millions of motorcycles, rickshaws, buses, trucks, cars, motorcycles, cows, even elephants and camels. We spent an hour and a half getting home last night, usually a 20 minute ride, partly because our rickshaw dide in the middle of the street and we had to run back and forth crossing the traffic (I'm talking a two lane road with 10 lanes of traffic, but no lanes) until we found an empty rickshaw willing to give us a ride. It is almost funny, sometimes, the gasping-close calls and lurching and swerving and braking. But then when you see certain things, of which I can't write because it makes me cry, it can't be funny anymore. Poverty, death, illness, and decrepitness test my humanity, my sanity.

On a lighter note (sort of...): We are staying in a little area of town called Majnu ka Tilla, which is the Tibetan colony in Delhi. It is much calmer here, if still stinky and dog and fly-infested. The Tibetans stare less and seem far more easy-going than the Indians. It is less crowded and the wares sold remind a person of the Himalayas, of trekking, of Buddhism, of hot tea, of natural rocks and gems of the earth. Tibetan flags are strung across the tops of the multi-colored concrete buildings, and the sounds of Tibetan Buddhist monks recall the prayers from the camii minarets in Turkey. While feeling so distraught here, I thought about the Tibetans' displacement from home. They don't have the option of going home. They must make their home here. TVs around the neighborhoods show discussions witht he Dalai Lama and others about the plight of the Tibetan people.

There are spots of color amid the chaos and darkness: smiling children that like to say, "Hellooo, what is your name?," women with intricate freshly painted henna designs on their hands and wrists, walking the crowded streets with arms raised like masts over their yellow and pink sari sails to prevent smudging, interesting and exotic wares for sale, temple decorations in sparkling in nearby trees. I am optimistic again, but so glad to be heading to Goa, a calm breath for a bit...