Freedom to Walk

You’re walking downs the street. It could be somewhere in Berkeley, you’re on your cell phone texting or talking, or casually conversing with a friend.   You stop to admire someone’s beautifully manicured lawn, smell the roses, and continue on your merry way.  Walk fast, walk slow, anyways you want to go.     

Now, after a couple of planes, a train, perhaps a bus, and a few days of jetlag you’re walking down the street again, in a nice part of town.  Expect that it happens to be half way around the world India, where everything is different and the only thing that’s the same is you.  You are in Udaipur, but you could be in Mumbai, or Delhi.  Upon taking a few steps, you realize that somewhere, perhaps in mid-air, you’ve morphed into a walking wallet.  Every 5 meters there is someone there who wants you to “open”, drink their chai, and do a cross-cultural exchange in the form of cash-flow.  Everyone is also convinced that when you are not shopping, you are in dire need of a rickshaw, a tour guide, a massage, money exchange or some food.  There are places that will offer you all those things at once, as well as a room to sleep.  You stop to smell the fragrant flowers by the road.  “Madam, ten rupees!”     

So, you get out of the old/pretty/touristy part of town and make it like the locals.  In the big cities, during the rare times that they are present, sidewalks are a desert oasis amidst the hustle of the street.  In Mumbai, it’s the Indian version of the San Francisco Bay to Breakers all day everyday. You are generally walking in a huge mass of people, colors, and parked in the middle of it all, the occasional cow.  Avoiding the random construction or dug up pavement all together, you crawl along, shoulder to shoulder (or shoulder to elbow, if you happen to be tall).  In the likelihood that there are no sidewalks, and you are sharing the road with bicycles, cars, taxis, mopeds, motorcycles, busses and, of course, the occasional cow.  In the small cities, you’ll get less traffic but more animals, such as donkeys, pigs, monkeys, the ever present cows, and the occasional camel.  Let’s also not forget the incessant beeping all around and “good luck” pies on the ground.  Walking down the street becomes an exercise in maintaining a superior state of alert attention as one must be aware of traffic, vehicles, animals, excrement, people and great photo opportunities. 

Like to walk fast?  Want to get somewhere quickly?  It’s much easier to re-examine your definition of walking, and align it to engaged crawling.  Otherwise, arm yourself with a smile, raise your defenses, alert your senses and full steam ahead until you step into a street surprise left by the occasional cow and have to stop to wipe it off.