It was probably about 10PM, and we were curled up in our little beds, piled on top of each other on the train to Varanasi, I think. My friends were on top of me and around me in a little bubble of safety in an overwhelming and often frightening place. I was reading and most people were sleeping, or trying to at least. I looked over my book and into my Lewis' eyes, who blew me a kiss and pulled the blankets up to his chin, exposing his feet which hung over the end of the bed anyway. I listened to Bon Iver during the night and cried because I was happy and sad and scared and helpless and amazed.
A tiny girl pulled at the corner of my top in New Delhi. I realised a few days after we arrived in Mumbai that India is no place for dawdling. If you stay stationary for too long, people will approach you fearlessly, children, adults, asking for money, food, if you want money changed, silk, trinkets, bhang and hash...The little girl was filthy, with a bright gold nosering sitting defiantly in the middle of her delicate face. She tapped my leg and pointed to her mouth insistently. I looked down at her for a second, then walked away. I gently pulled my clothes out of her little hand and walked away from this tiny girl asking me for help. I really hate myself for leaving her.
India gave me better reasons to hate myself than any I could have ever dreamed of in Australia. And it will stick, permanently, tattooed into my memory, and maybe it will be for the best. I won't take anything for granted, not anymore. I don't think I ever could again, after simply walking down the street, past piles of rubbish taller than a man, past sickly and scrawny dogs, cats, goats and cows, past adults and children asking for food and money and mercy.
It seems dreary, it seems hopeless, it seems depressing and disgusting. I felt all of those things when I was in India.
But I loved it, too. I really did.
I loved India because Indians love India, with a tenacious ferocity that has lasted for centuries. For the most part, the people have happy hearts. Most live simply, peacefully, they work hard, and they have a joy and passion for living that could only be possible in the full knowledge of just how much worse things could be.
In Agra, we were trying to book trains when we heard pounding music, coming from somewhere within the alleyways nearby. The people helping us book weren't phased, saying 'wedding,' with a little grin. We walked outside into the mayhem; about five rickshaws were going agonisingly slow down the street, one with four sets of HUGE speakers, one with a strange super-plate of lights, all surrounding this weird marching band, and the groom on top of a beautiful beautiful horse, holding a tiny baby and a sword! Everyone was singing, and dancing, and there were so many people there it would have been impossible that they were ALL involved in the actual wedding - everyone was just there for the party. It was bliss.
Indian people love dreams, and they love living in hope. Bollywood films are shiny romantic fantasies that fill the people with joy and love and hope. Indian weddings, like the amazing procession we encountered in Agra, are the same - romantic, joyous, hopeful. In a world where most people have nothing, all you can count on are hope, and love. I have had the honour of learning that lesson from India - one that I would gladly learn again, and again, when I go back there one day.
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