Welcome to India

[I did not post this when I first arrived, giving India time and space to "sink in" to my being.  Now that it's time to go, let's go back 3.5 months]

Welcome to India.  Sitting in this crumbling dirty hotel room with mosquito nets (thank G-d!), beaten up walls, dirty curtains and complimentary water with miss-matched bottle caps; it is hard to know where to start.  The on-going conversation of the traffic outside, incessant beeping and the occasional screaming is the background, noise to my musings.  The fan overhead is kicking up a small whirlwind in the room as it spins and bobbles, threatening to escape its fixture any second.  The pillows have numerous hairs scattered about as part of the décor, and I’ve yet to examine the sheets.  The furniture is falling apart.  There are stains on the walls.  The shower does not work and two buckets sit under the faucet as permanent back-up.  I sit tired, dirty and motionless, realizing the futility of cleaning myself here, unable to move due to sheer disgust.  The thought of one more day here is not pleasant, let alone a few months of travel.   

Though I’ve read a lot and have been told a lot, it is very different to experience it with my own eyes.  Last night, for just $12 more dollars I slept in an immaculate room, with the latest facilities, freshness, and style in Singapore.  It was one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever been to.  Today is different.  The hotel arranged a pick up that never showed up.  After sitting outside for half hour in the arrivals enclose, turning into more lucrative bait to both mosquitoes and hollering cab drivers, I decided to go to the cab desk (another wave of gratitude here) to pre-arrange a fare.  This was easy enough, $4 later I had a slip in my hand with a cab number and my destination.  Venturing out of the enclosed “safe space” in the airport was also not as scary as imagined.  Simply rolling my cart past different cabs and people sleeping on the ground, I found cab 0991, much to my surprise.  He was ready to go, and thought seemingly more interested in how much I paid for the hotel and whether I arranged it online, than where it is actually located.  Merging, screaming and honking through traffic filled with cars, auto rickshaws, bicycles, people and dogs, I was surprised that we actually saw the neon red letters with “Host Inn” on top of a 20 story building. 

 [Fast forward]

When I wrote this post 3.5 months back, I was on the verge of tears.  I was defeated, having not even stepped foot outside of the hotel room, and horrified to do so.  Since then, I’ve extended my time here not once, but twice.  Now, re-reading these words, it actually does not sound so bad at all!  Eh, just a regular hotel room.  Ignore the hairs and dirt, spread out my trusty travel sheet (or sleeping condom, as Nick calls it), bucket-shower away the dirt, write and sleep.  In hind site, that was likely the worst hotel experience of the whole trip, thought I will never know whether it was by perception or reality.

I end my trip exactly where I started, full circle.  Oddly enough, though I fly domestically, mine is a connecting flight and so I arrive at Chatrapati Shivaji International.  The décor does not look faded, the people are not strange.  It’s all normal.  The fact that it’s almost midnight does not phase me in the slightest.  I don’t wait for hotel pick-ups and don’t even arrange one out o the fear of the unknown.  Easily proceeding to the outside prepaid taxi stand (the line is shorter!), making sure no one cuts in front of me (thus gaining their smiles and respect) I get a cab to Whoorly, Mumbai.  The traffic, thought ever present, is not so bad!  I don’t see the crazy throngs of dogs and people, don’t notice the crazy noise, and the sewer smell that sharply bites my nose from time to time does not surprise me.

I know exactly where I am going and what to expect.  One of the most stylish buildings in Mumbai, the coziest of apartments, the kindest of people.  N and V have housed, fed, nurtured and acclimated me to India shortly after my arrival; post the crazy hotels, cabs and traffic.  Whether through kind words or amazing home-made food, clean shower or simple tips to get around the city, a helping hand to cross the crazy traffic or a cab to the airport, the peace and wisdom that just flows effortlessly from their beings.  Though they are away, friends make all the arrangements for me to arrive and be comfortable.

My first morning in India I woke to the same sound of traffic, not sure whether I would last two weeks in the country or have to make my escape.  My last morning, I wake up to the sound of the Arabian sea and birds, musing about my return to this multifaceted colorful country.  It doesn’t feel like the end of a journey, just the beginning.