Wow, India. Wow.

Monday, October 13, 2014
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
I had the pleasure of visiting India once before. Also with Juniper for a work project. It was back in 2011 and just weeks before I was moving home to Missouri. Actually, that is putting it lightly. I believe I returned from India on a Wednesday and the movers came on Friday.

Anyway, the last time I was in India my mind was likely distracted and yet I found it to be such a captivating, enchanting, almost mythical place. After three years had passed I wondered what I would feel upon returning.

Maybe it is the jet lag but it truly feels like I took some sort of Amsterdam seeds (if you knows what I means) and envisioned this world where fortune and misfortune live alongside each other. Sky-high apartments with multiple pools rise above the streets where elderly men and women walk on their bare feet, along streets of trash. A day laborer's job consists of breaking concrete by hand with a medieval hammer, and the traffic signals equate to the flick of a wrist by a man in what can best be described as a tourist shop cowboy hat. 

And yet, it is life. And it must work. Because here it is. 

It is the same way with the driving. I actually saw a few taxi cabs with a sign that said, "If driving rash, please call..." Driving rash would be the least of what I witnessed. Multiple people packed on motorbikes, rickshaws and super-mini cars weaving not only in and out of traffic but literally touching cars on either side. Cars, trucks, dump trucks, trash trucks and cows. Yes, cows wandering the street with the same gravitas as a cross Italian momma. Keep your distance while you keep on keeping on.

And the caucophony of horn beeps. It is its own unique language. At first it sounds aggressive but as you learn to watch the mannerisms and demeanor of the honker and honkee, you realize it is just a conversation:

Beep-beep (Hey, Anand.)

Beep. (Hey, Chandra. How is it going?)

Beep-de-beep. (Good. Good. Thanks. By the way, there is a cow on your right. Beware.)

Beep. Beep. (Thanks, pal. Be sure to send love to the wife and kids.)

Beep, beep, beep. (Will do. Also, there is a a motorbike riding the wrong way down the shoulder. Must be Raghu.)

Beep. (Yeah yeah, it's me Raghu, I am late for work. See you tonight at the biryani place.)

And thousands and thousands of these conversations and wrong-way drivers and unbelieveably rash driving is occuring every single moment of the Indian day.

But that is just life here, and in my many close-calls today I never saw a single accident. It must work for them, because here it is.

I worry that I sound like I am saying, "just settle for what you have and never seek to improve. If this is how life is, then that is it and there is no use trying to change it."

But if you know me, you know I would NEVER advise that. I always promote growth (!) learning (!) self-actualization (!) go-carpe-diem-the-hell-outta-life.

And so it is a most humbling feeling that I can come somewhere that exhibits such an enormous gap and sit back to actually appreciate the system and history that are the roots of this culture. 

Because I also see women driving their own scooters and mini-cars. And women at work, their own work, without their husband. And being hosts on the radio and talking freely about their opinions. I suspect that may be a cultural change from whence this country came. So perhaps change comes slowly, but it does come. Just like the subway system that was all rubble and red tape the last time I visited. There is still plenty of rubble. But when I looked down from my 11th story Hyatt hotel room, past the lush garden and blue pool (I am most certainly a "have" in India), I can see a metro train running along its track.

We all must grow in our own way, in our own time. That is the truth of life. And it must work, because here we are.

Photos & Videos

Comments

Mom
2014-10-13

I say, WOW, Josie. You paint quite a picture. I'm proud of you, afraid for you and just impressed by you.

A Jean
2014-10-13

Adventurer, Liberator, Educator, Artist, and Philosopher all rolled up in one
young woman - so proud to know you and get to hear of Josie's Life!
You actually made it to Bangalore and not that other B country! :)
OK! Now when are you coming home?

catherine
2014-10-20

Tennyson's line about Ulysses - "I am part of all I have met" surely represents your personality, and your generosity in sharing your experiences trickles down to those of us who are "armchair travellers". Thanks for your postings!!
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2025-02-08

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