New Delhi October 7, 2008
Posted by admin in : Travels Tags:Far East, India, New Delhi, overstimulated, pollution, poor, poverty, shopping bazaars, suffering , trackback
I’m usually never at a loss for words yet every time I try and write about my trip to India, my mind shuts down and nothing wants to come out. I still feel a heaviness in my body and it’s unsettling. I’m usually pretty good with processing things that happen to me, but this trip seems to loom over me like a dark cloud.
I wanted more than anything in this world to go to India and absolutely love it, but the truth of the matter is that I didn’t and I’m having a hard time admitting it. People are so excited when they ask me about my trip and they have the same light of curiosity and wonderment in their eye, as I had before I left, but I can’t lie nor deny my feelings. The trip was really hard and the truth be told…it wasn’t blissful and it wasn’t nirvana.
I’ve traveled around the world and visited developing countries so I thought I was prepared to see all the suffering, but nothing could ever prepare someone for the level of poverty that exists in New Delhi. Next to Tokyo, India’s State Capital is the world’s most populous city at 17 million and an approximately 8% of the population live below the poverty line. There are very few places in the world where poverty is so pervasive and the city so dingy and untidy. The houses were crowded together side by side and all of them seemed ordinary and drab without a lot of color or creative architecture.
The airport was filthy and the bathrooms nauseating. There weren’t many Western style bathrooms available and if there were, they were usually worse than the Indian style where you literally squatted over a hole and then washed yourself with a hose and not the kind of hose you would find attached to bidet, but a garden hose attached to an old rusty spicket with a bucket beside it. Rarely would you find toilet tissue and the smell of human waste seemed to fill the entire city.
My senses were overloaded and my nervous system stimulated beyond repair. The air pollution was oppressive and the honking horns grating. I can still hear the horns of every car, bus, taxi and rickshaw. Everyone drove a million miles an hour and not necessarily in a straight line. Drivers blew their horns every time they passed another vehicle and there were hundreds of vehicles on the road at any given time so all you ever heard the moment you walked out of the hotel was the sound of horns blowing throughout the city.
There was never a moment of stillness. The hunger, poverty, and suffering were so overwhelming to see, as I’ve never witnessed so many kids living on the street begging for money. There was actually a tiny naked baby laying on the sidewalk beside her frail mother who was barely alive. People defecated on the street, live stock wondered freely, and stray malnutrition dogs ate out of vile dumpsters.
There was no fresh air to breathe and although we stayed at one of the nicest hotels in Delhi, the rooms smelled like moth balls and bed bugs were still looming in the mattresses. I slept with socks, long pants, long sleeves, ear plugs, and an eye pillow because I was afraid something would crawl across me in the middle of the night. I said a prayer every night before I went to bed and tried not to think about anything but falling asleep and as fast as I could.
The shopping bazaars were nothing like Western Style Shopping Malls. The streets were lined with vendors selling anything you could possibly imagine. Jewelry, saris, fabric, pillow coverings, prayer beads, incense, wall hangings, statues…you name it. The vendors would accost you and follow you down the street. They yelled out prices and haggled over everything and nothing was ever final. It was exhausting and completely overwhelming.
Some of the people in the group loved the energy and found it exciting to bargain with the natives, but I hated it. I had to be patient and not have a complete meltdown, but at one point there were probably 20 women surrounding us trying to sell us cashmere wraps. They were not only in my space, but breathing down my neck. Their voices kept escalating, as they pulled on our clothes and I wanted to respect the culture, but I had enough. I had to physically walk away and get some water because my heart was racing and I was about the have a full blown anxiety attack.
Between the noise, the heat, and being exhausted, I was ready to drop. All I wanted to do was go back to the hotel and take a nap, but we got stuck waiting for one of the people in the group who went to get water and ended up negotiating with one of the vendors. My patience was gone and I was tired of being mobbed by women and children who were homeless and starving. I had to dig deep to find the ability to hold on, but somehow I managed persevere.
I never got my nap, but we did go out to a really nice dinner that evening. It was so refreshing after all the buffet meals we had been served with oils, heavy creams, and lots of sodium. The restaurant was in a beautiful hotel adorned with fresh flowers, beautiful paintings and ornate furniture. The meal was incredible and much welcomed after the long tiring day, but then we drove back through the streets of starvation and poverty where people were sleeping on the sidewalks and suddenly I felt guilty for the amazing meal I just had and for all the comforts of the West.
How does one process such devastation? How does one stop from feeling so sad and helpless? I was told the people weren’t suffering as much as I imagined because they didn’t know any different, but how is that possible? How can anyone be comfortable laying on the street starving to death?
It was absolutely heart wrenching and I had a really hard time dealing with it. The noise, the dirty air, the heavy food was all starting to get to me. I felt helpless and exhausted and physically heavy. My belly was bloated, my head ached, and my body tired. The one thing I tried to hold on to was the smiles of some of the people who didn’t have anything, but the clothes on their back. How they managed to still find some remnant of happiness was beyond me, but somehow they had something in their hearts that allowed them to show some sign of joy.
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