Delhi - Indian Quality Questions
Trip Start
Mar 03, 2005
1
40
235
Trip End
Ongoing
Delhi,
India
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Then inside the terminal proper, my ticket was checked again, I was mediumly frisked, x-rayed personally, had the X-ray wand prodded into me, and put my luggage through another machine.
As I checked in they announced over the loudspeakers that "for security purposes, no hand luggage is to be taken aboard flights leaving Leh". I looked at the three pieces of hand luggage over my shoulders (I had left my main pack at the hotel in Delhi) and thought, hmmm maybe they won't notice....
They didn't seem to mind the collection of bags I was carrying, which I was thankful for, but I did notice them taken batteries out of one lady's handbag. As they opened my bags to inspect them all, laying my underwear neatly out for all to see, I hoped they wouldn't take away my Ipod. Or camera. They didn't, but the security process wasn't over. My luggage was X-rayed again. I had another X-ray wand waved over my bits (if I get testicular cancer I know who to blame) and then for one last check, I was somewhat forcefully squeezed and frisked for the final time.
It was early, I hadn't eaten, and some bloke was checking my groin for concealed weapons. If I'm going to be poked and groped that much that early in the morning, I want them to at least ask my name, or at least have taken me out for dinner and a movie the night before. When the last guard frisked me, I wondered for a while whether I would have to turn my head to the side and cough.
Taking off from Leh was as crazy as landing there. The 737 thunders and bumps down the runway, and you can't help but think, "c'mon buddy we're running out of tarmac, get it up, get it up!". Shortly after sneaking off the ground, we make a sharp right turn around the first dusty hill, and then 30 seconds later make four steep banks to the left as we go around a giant snow peak.
I was returning to Delhi for one night in order to organise train tickets to Jaipur. Returning here has given me a chance to consider where my mind stands in relation to India as a nation. All that you see in front of you, everything that happens, makes you ask questions. Some I can answer with accuracy, some with assumptions, while others I just can't even consider an answer for, and probably never will.
Q - Why do cows roam the streets of a city of 12.5 million people?
A - Cows amble down alleyways and up major streets 24/7. They are each privately owned, their owners letting them lose for most of the day and night to scrounge for food in the rubbish piles. There is no food supply from grass here, as there ain't any grass. Magically the cows return home once a day, as it is painful if they aren't milked and they know they'll get milked if the go home. Homing Cows if you like. So the owner gets the milk and doesn't have to feed the cows nor have them poop out the front of their house. Of course, that doesn't explain why Pigs also loiter around the streets. But it does remind me, if Yak Cheese comes from milked Yaks, and Goat's cheese comes from milked Goats, then where does Persian Fetta come from - milked carpets or milked cats?
Q - Why don't others steal the milk by milking the wandering cows?
A - Bad karma
Q - Are the Cows on the street annoying?
A - Well, there is only shit everywhere, and they only occasionally swipe their excrement loaded tails against you, and they only sometimes butt you, and if you're walking past and they decide to bonk then its over.... (yes this did happen - within one metre of Bovine "gettiniton" in the street)
Q - Why aren't I eating Beef in India
A - Its against their local religious beliefs, and I've seen the cows eat the garbage off the streets and lick the gutters. Oh my god I've just realised I've been drinking milk. Ewww.
Q - Why aren't I eating Pork in India
A - I've seen the Pigs eat the garbage. And eat the Cow dung.
Q - Why are you eating Chicken then?
A - There ain't no Chooks eating the garbage
Q - Why are there so many locals with deformities, such as beggard with astoundingly bent limbs, or one of the hotel staff in Jodhpur having a second thumb coming out of one of his other thumbs
A - I guess arranged marriages, some with close relatives
Q - Why do most Autorickshaw drivers lie?
A - Cos most are right bastards
Q - How can I walk around a 6 year old child asleep on the filthy ground of a train station?
A - It is confrontational at first, but you see it so often that you become desensitized. Sad but true.
Q - Why don't I give money to beggars?
A - Some appear to be career beggars, others have a beggar's "pimp" demanding a share, and there are so many of them. I saw sitting in a rickshaw at an intersection, with a crowd of 5 around me asking for money. The driver turned to me and said "this is the real India". I have given money to those who have serious medical issues, such as to lepers or those with horrible deformities. But if I gave just one rupee to every beggar, then I'd already be on the way home now.
Q - Why are most Indian's teetotallers?
A - Cos 9 times out of 10, the Indian brews are bloody terrible.
Q - Why don't Indian drivers follow any road rules?
A - Because they have no fear of death. There will be a religious afterlife. Of course that doesn't explain why there is so much grief shown if there is road death....
Q - Why do Indians like a 'scene', such as a car crash, or like on the train today when someone had an epileptic fit where they all crowded around to watch, or like on the Indian TV version of 'Crimestoppers' they show the stabbed or shot bodies close up?
A - The locals show an air of "such is life" but I also believe they enjoy it. They mustn't be desensitized from it, because otherwise they wouldn't stop and look for ten minutes. They seem to revel in it
Q - Why are Indians obsessed with Cricket
A - Because they are hopeless at all other sports
Q - Why are the Indians TV shows, TV ads and movies so bloody cheerful all the time?
A - Escapism from their daily lives, which are often based just on survival in a horrible life
Q - How can Indians accept that their life is just how it is, without improving their life, such as those in the slums?
A - Its a vicious circle for most, and they fight to live rather than fight to get out, but it is also predominantly due to the caste system where they accept their social rung and settle for it
Q - Am I being too negative about India now?
A - I don't think so, just matter of fact. This is how it is here.
And those that I can't answer....
Q - Why do the locals think that wandering animals in cities is normal and acceptable?
Q - Why is it acceptable to have mounds of garbage in all of the streets?
Q - Where do the locals shop, when their aren't any supermarkets?
Q - Why do they accept that the massive pollution is an ok way to live?
Q - Why is it ok to defeacate in the street?
Q - Why is it ok to have an open public toilet for everyone to see in?
Q - Why do Indian men hold hands in such a poncy way, all the time?
Q - Why are some of the dishes made so hot that it hurts to eat them, and also hurts on the way out?
I can't understand any of those.
