The Indian Experience

Taking refuge, passing the time in a rooftop restaurant called Club India, I sat with some other single travelers reading, writing, thinking. I ordered grilled cheese with tomato, just for something like home, and afterall, it's on the menu. They still seemed confused, though, asking several times exactly how I want the bread cooked. I ordered orange juice, fresh, but it's just not possible, since the man on the street who pushes the cart with an enormous pile of oranges and a hand-cranked juicer viced to the cart is not around at the moment. As it turns out, he appeared an hour and a half later and I got my juice, frothy, pulp separating, a bit warm from the afternoon sun, and sweet as a tangerine.
The Indian experience can be taxing. You're very often walking on dirt, rock and broken brick or pavement, tripping over dogs and avoiding piles of shit, wet puddles of you don't want to know what, and the red spots of spit from flavored tobacco chew packets sold at every stand in the bazaar. You try to walk at the edge of the road, but it's a shifting, zigzag path taken over by cars, bikes, rickshaws, or streetdwellers, street vendors, groups talking in the middle of the road, oblivious to you trying to get by or even a motorcycle speeding inches away from their or your ankles. All the while, you're distracted every few steps, summoned by merchants with emphatic voices, "Excuse me, mam, please look! Excuse me!!" Power outages happen daily, at the worst times, when I'm on the computer, or trying to use an Indian toilet. Shop owners often sit in the almost dark of their shops, only to turn on lights when a customer comes by. Navigating the city is not easy, as there are few maps that actually draw more than the main roads, hundreds of windy streets going undocumented. I have yet to see any street signs in all of India. I actually don't even know what they might look like! In certain areas, if anyone actually looks like they're willing to help you with directions, it is most likely they will just listen to where you want to go and then try to persuade you to go to their shop and will tell you that where you want to go is either closed, no more, or too expensive. And they will not give a clue to where you've asked to be directed to. It's quite maddening.
An Australian traveler we met on the train to Delhi said he's met a lot of travelers who really were unhappy being in India. I've wondered before who I might recommend this trip to. It's extremely strenuous and one must get completely out of their comfort zone to enjoy it.
Either way, I love walking the streets where I'm not bombarded by merchants selling saris and brass trinkets. (Joseph says he likes those markets because he feels so popular.) I love the spice market with its jute bags rolled down to expose a dozen varieties each of rice and lentils, the red and yellow chili and turmeric carefully sculpted into high peaks, the carrots- all over India, redder and bigger than I've ever seen. There's the man who lugs the silver dispenser of chai, shouting chayeechayeechayee like a siren through the market. In little alcoves, little holes in the wall all over the place, tailors or shoe makers set up shop, with few instruments, an beautiful old sewing machine or a long brass needle. The shoemaker sits on the floor holding the shoe with one hand and a foot, toes curled around the sole, the other hand stitching. India has not stopped being overwhelming to me. I don't think it will. I try to stay just on the edge of the tourist part of town. I fluctuate between wanting a truly Indian experience and to be in the comfort of other travelers.
Since Joseph left this morning, I've been trying to decide what to do next. I have a week before I will be at Bija Vidyapeeth, a school and organic farm started by Vandana Shiva, my hero. I've decided to go to Chandighar, a city planned by Le Corbusier. I hear it's very cosmopolitan, the young people are very West-influenced and it's green with lots of open space, a respite from this choatic life. I'm interested, though to experience this modernist utopia that Corbu has forced upon Indian people. An American architect, Nowicki said, "this dream of some modern planners depends entirely on a way of life alien to that of India". Still, Corbu envisioned this utopia where "arithmetic, texturique and geometrics" would replace the "oxen, cows, and goats driven by peasants crossing the sun-scorched fields. Honestly, I can't imagine any Indian in Johdpur, Agra or anywhere wanting to change ways and live in a set up such as Chandighar.
I was just reading today that 84 million Indians are tribal people, with over 450 tribal groups, with origins going back several thousands of years. However, in recent decades, more than half! have been dispossessed of their ancestral land and turned into impoverished laborers. India's incredibly corrupt government is behind the dispossession and exploitation of these people. I find it heartwrenching that their ancient traditions and culture is eroding and will soon exist no more. At the school, Bija Vidyapeeth, they are training farmers to farm organically and biodynamically, to preserve seeds in seed banks, to protect ancient knowledge with courses that teach homeopathic medicine, cooking traditions and ways we can live on the land, save precious water, and defend our environment. All of the knowledge they teach has been passed down from many generations. I will be attending a 4 day course at the farm called Grandmother's University where we learn a little bit of many of these things. More here: http://www.navdanya.org/