Arrival to New Delhi

The first thing I notice when I get past customs in India is two men in camouflage utilities with MP5-K submachine guns. A sight like this makes most people nervous, and full of questions like “why” and “is that really necessary?”, but for me, the only questions that come to mind are “why MP5-Ks?” and “where are they keeping their extra magazines?” Call me strange, but the sight of men in uniform with guns has never made me feel anything but safer.

And safety is something of a prized possession in in India. Everywhere I’d gone before this, travelers had told me that I was either brave or crazy to travel India alone. I consider myself neither of these things, but their warnings had the effect of making me rather nervous. My first experiences in country only exacerbated this.

I had arranged for my hotel to pick me up at the airport, and the man they sent was a skinny man who looked just shy of thirty. I took his unshaven stubble and barely functional car to be merely be part of the charm, and it was only once we’d gotten on the highway that I actually started to worry. He’d picked up a call from his cell phone as we left the parking lot, and spent the next ten minutes trying to talk to whoever was on the other end while at the same time operating a manual shift.

This probably wouldn’t have been a problem if it hadn’t been for New Delhi’s traffic, which some would call congested, and I would describe as insane. There are lanes, but they are not used. There are traffic signs and stop lights, which are largely ignored at all but the most major of intersections. There are motos, which zoom in between cars, trucks, pedestrians, and there is the occasional donkey cart, passing through gaps barely as wide as they were and that appeared and closed with just seconds to spare. The traffic in Delhi is a dance, a fevered dream that millions pass through to get wherever they are going.

And my driver was like a tuneless elephant with one foot missing.

I clutched the “oh shit” handle in his car, fervently hoping the seatbelt in it was worth a damn while I waited for the inevitable collision. I had just made up my mind to snatch the cell phone from his hand when a close call brought us literally millimeters away from another vehicle, where a middle aged man and what looked like his younger brothers or older sons honked his horn so loud that my driver glanced over. The man, obviously irritated, but also clearly willing himself away from enragement, gestured for my driver to roll down his window. He did, and in totally calm either Hindi or Marathi, the driver of the other car chewed mine out.

I couldn’t tell what was said, but the gist was this: “Put your phone away and drive. You are going to get someone killed, and that is going to be on you.”

My driver nodded solemnly, and restricted his further cell phone usage to answering a quick call from his boss, asking where we were.

As we passed further into the city, we passed thousands of beggars. If you are from the West and have never left your country, I very much doubt that you have seen the abject poverty that is the reality of much of India. There are literally millions of homeless people on the streets of New Delhi. They live in the spaces where intersection medians would be in western countries, and on the sidewalks, and in any open space available. Filthy children, some crippled, some holding other children in their arms or leading them by their hands, walk between the cars, begging for rupees. Young women in bright saris with babies on their hips patrol the same beat, moving from car to car like butterflies. They lock eyes with me, and I feel a burning shame at my relative wealth, obvious by my mere presence. I recently read that people hate the poor because the poor, without doing anything, make us ashamed of ourselves. I didn’t understand that when I first came to India, and to my deepest sorrow, the poverty I saw in India awoke anger in my heart.

Every time I turned my eyes away from a beggar and hardened my face, I felt a deep stirring of shame that quickly turned to anger. Why should I be ashamed of my travel? Am I to give all my money to the poor, though it would make little difference but to make me as poor as they? How dare they make me feel this way!

I now reject these selfish thoughts.  These people are not in control of how I feel. Only I can decide that. By the time I make it to the hotel, I feel nothing but sorrow and pity. Later those emotions too would fade, and something else would take their place. I don’t know the name for it; it is somewhere between understanding and respecting – east of acknowledgement and west of comprehension. They would not want my pity, and my sorrow means nothing to them.

The drive was my first introduction into the madness that is India. Now, with retrospect, I know that I allowed it to affect my decision-making. My introduction to India intimidated the hell out of me, to my detriment and the detriment of my travel there. With that said, I look back on that week-long whirlwind fondly, and do not regret my time there. 

- Doug