When your airplane arrives in India, its unmistakable that you are in the right place. When the door to the jetway opens, you can literally feel and smell India. They hit you like a one-two combo from a heavy weight champion. First the jab hits you, the hot damp air rushes in and envelopes you. Sweat begins to pour down your back and arms and your lungs fill with that heaviness. Then, just as your body starts to adjust, the upper cut lands you square in the jaw. Boom! The scents and odors of India begin to permeate everywhere. Its hard to describe but its some sort of combination of tropical breezes, sweat, curry, exhaust fumes and hot spices. The upper cut lands a little harder than the jab and it takes a second to get your legs back. But just like the heavy weight travel contender that you hope to be, you take that combo, breath it all in deeply, shed a layer of clothing and remember, this adventure is definitely worth it.
Now that you have adjusted, you begin to move around India. Exiting the airport, you will immediately hear the first language of India. It isn’t Hindi or English, it’s the car horn. The car horn is the universal language of travel in the cities. I wouldn’t even dare leave my house if my horn wasn’t working. There is no driving with one hand on the wheel and one out the window in India. Indian driving, as far as I can tell, requires two hands on the horn, one hand on the wheel, one hand to gesture at the 12 cars within 6 inches of you and one hand to shift. You need no less than 5 arms to drive here. Perhaps that is why Indian gods have so many arms, they recognized the need generations ago.
Now as we are navigating the immensely overcrowded, unregulated streets, the fascinating part of Indian traffic makes itself apparent. Feral Cows! Yes, you read that correctly, I’m not talking cats, I’m talking cattle. 2,000 lb Brahma bulls, that are only topped by 2500 lb water buffalo. They are just chillin’, walking around in the middle of the city. They are not someone’s pets or escaped cattle, they are street animals and there are millions of them! They are everywhere. In front of google headquarters Delhi, check. On the main highway into town, check, in the median of the road in the governmental district, check. Down the side alleys in the residential area, check. There are more feral cows here than being ranched in all of Texas!
Imagine hitting a water buffalo at 50mph? Well, you don’t have to worry about that, traffic here never goes that fast. If you are doing 10mph you are flying. But just as you are getting used to the cows hanging out, looking in your window as you pass on by, the next oddity of Indian traffic hits you. Sitting at the stop light, the guy pulls up next to me, on an elephant! He is sitting at the red light with his elephant in idle. How does the elephant driver honk his horn? Does he trumpet on demand or does he just reach down with his trunk and move that annoying motorcycle guy out of the way? I couldn’t even fathom getting into an accident with that? He could turn the term “hit and run” up on its head. How do you deal with an elephant in traffic? His “exhaust” is a bit more toxic than the average car’s. Does his driver (can you call him a driver?) have car, er I mean elephant insurance? His elephant weighs more than a massive truck, he certainly can do a lot of damage, yet I think he is probably an uninsured driver. I’m not even going to get into the ideas of the road rage incident he could cause. Finally, the light turns green and off he goes, thankfully in a different direction than us.
Then the final problem of Indian traffic presents itself. Roads. Flooded, potholed, crowded, almost unpassable roads. Part of the journey I wasn’t even sure what we were on was technically a road. Could have been a path or a trail, but not a road. Again, traveling at 2-5mph is about the most you can hope for. My driver told me it was a new road, less than 4 years old, yet all I could see was mud and holes. Then as we turned down a side alley towards our hotel, we suddenly were on a cobblestone road. Like any old road you might see in Europe. The driver informs me, this road is over 500 years old! How can it be that a 500-year-old road is in perfect driving condition for a modern automobile and a 4-year-old, modern engineered road is totally washed out and unpassable? I think that is one of the many contradictions of modern India. Of which I’m sure we are about to experience firsthand.
Finally we pulled into our hotel. Where we were greeted with a bomb sniffing dog and a guy with a huge mirror to look under the car. After a thorough inspection of my Uber car, they cheerfully opened the gate and off we went, into the world of wealthy India. The India behind the gates and walls is a completely different place from the chaotic city and street life we just journeyed through and yes it is most beautiful. That life will be in the next story…
bgjflyer 