Sensory Overload
 I was promised a sensory overload unlike anything I ever experienced the moment I stepped off the plane, however, the trouble with such promises is that my imagination turns them into something that reality cannot fulfill. The airport wasn’t particularly busy and getting through customs, changing some money, and getting on our bus was not too unusual. The vans and cars look like midget cousins of those back home and two-wheel transportation vastly outnumbers the 4-wheel variety, but for now that was all that really struck me. It was dark, our hotel was nice, and sleep was welcomed.
What a difference a day makes. Driving through Deli was like a ride through some frenetic hive. Controlled chaos comes to mind. As I peered out the rear window of our bus I notice we were on a 3 lane road, but the vehicles were spread 6 wide. I say vehicles because there was everything from a bicycle, to a tractor, to an ox-drawn cart on the road. Every view was a snapshot of the last millennium as if the centuries had been superimposed on top of each other. I look to the side and a Porsche Cheyenne is weaving through a pack of donkeys, dozens of mopeds carrying families of 4 on the handle-bars, and buses carrying at least twice as many people as seemed possible. If there were formal rules of the road, there is no evidence of it. The road belonged to everyone and anything all at once. A cow is wandering in the road, a truck is so overloaded with sacks it looks as if it may tip over, a man is dragging steel rebar behind a bicycle, another is pushing a cart full of fruits, another has about 8 people piled onto a three-wheeled motorized rickshaw. . . every moment looks like a dozen accidents about to happen, every moment traffic comes at you from every direction and yet, somehow this chaotic mix works, everyone is strangely calm despite constant flirtations with death. It all moves along like water down a stream, simply flowing around anything in its path, and the banks of this river teem with life. Everywhere there are people sleeping, selling, talking, praying, working, walking, cleaning, eating… you name it. This is the Delhi I saw today and nothing seems static and it is messy. Rubble, dirt, construction materials, junk, and countless other things lay everywhere it seems. Construction is not done appear to be done by crews with orange jackets, signs, cones, and machines, it is done here and there, by hand and pick-ax, right in the midst of everything. No project seems finished, nor do they seem like they will ever finish. The city is growing haphazardly and constantly and people are crammed ever more densely. Live and let live is how one Indian described their attitude, and it seems key to how this all works.
Much more happened today, but we have to get on a train very early, so I end here with the promise of more to come.
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