last days in india
Along with peanuts, soft drinks, hard drinks, lip stuck smiles, strangely satisfyingly packed food and futile emergency plans, planes have a habit of hurling at you heaps of useless information as to your exact location. It's a nice touch as it grants an inane grasp of your surroundings as the plane hurls you into (half the time) complete disorientation. 6 weeks ago I was 39,000ft above Pakistan, travelling at 892km/h, 2 hours from landing in Bangalore with no expectations less obvious and more helpful than 'lots of brown people and curry'. Now I am descending from a height of 11km down into Delhi and my expectations are a little more detailed and developed as to the nature of the city. Rickshaw and taxi drivers will fight for yet inflate my fare and drive me through a city still busy despite the near midnight hour the air will fluctuate from a fauna of fruit and flowers in market streets to fumes in octuple carriageways and horns will blare and Indians will stare when I get there and look lost for my hotel. At heart I'm six weeks younger though as I'm here to see a girl who made me feel feelings I'd forgotten how to feel, who appears to return said feelings, whose cheeks swell to shrink her sacred cow's eyes with a smile that shatters my most armoured facade of confidence and who lives 1,000s of miles from Scotand and I have no expdectations less obvious and more helpful than 'lots of happiness and heartbreak'.
That was two weeks ago. Now I'm 36,000ft over Kiev, flying through a 46km/h wind at 855km/h. It will takes another 2 hours and 48 minutes to travel the remaining 2027km before landing in a partly cloudy London, where nearly 7,000km and I don't know how many months will seperate me from Lori Gupta, now my girlfriend. I'll be landing in a seriously long distance relationship at a time when I'm too busy to be flying to India every other weekend, however I am happily confident with my expectations of it, as the last two weeks have confirmed to me that I have found someone truly special, and the thought of seeing her again gives me a calm focus that will carry me through the unthinkably soon trials and tribulations of fourth year.
Enough mush, after all this evil plane is also taking me away from a country that has a lot more to offer than I had ever imagined. Me and Lori spent a week in McLeod Ganj, a hill station 1,750km high in the Himalayas, where the Dalai Lama's settled with flocks of Tibetans after being exiled in 1959. Lori was as much an ethnic minority as me for a change, as it was far more likely to encounter Buddhist monks in red robes oozing their inner peace down the street under rainbow striped umbrellas or dreadlocked American backpackers sitting in restaurants waxing political, philisophical and metaphysical, rather than the undiluteld masses of Indians I had become used to. The religion and food followed suit. An ornate Buddhist temple richly decorated with spinning prayer wheels, Tibetan script, gold and nightmarish elephants replaced the contrasting godless mosques and deity draped temples that normally alternate every street corner, and the rice was served with an entirely different spectrum of spicy sauces. Not that our diet deviated much from more and more mutton momos.
Yoga is an integral part of Tibetan Buddhism, and Lori, in spite of a full briefing and demonstration on my clumsy lack of coordination taught me some postures which stretched muscles I didn't know existed in directions they didn't know existed. All previous skepticism of it being fake lazy exercise has been replaced by respect and I intend to continue practising it in Dundee if I can overcome my fear of intense pain and snapping ligaments. Most of the time though, we just relaxed, enjoying our limited time together to the point of starvation then overcompensating with momos, and walking around the town and surrounding hills. One day we decided to nearly double our altitude by hiring a guide to trek us to Triund and back. Waterfalls, rivers, rain, mist and sweat soaked our ascent and at the top we shivered desperately over central heating for lungs and stomach. Our efforts were rewarded though, when the mist cleared after lunch to reveal the staggering rocky peaks of the surrounding Dhauladhar range and views of the ground below shrinking steadily out to the horizon, making our descent a drier and different experience altogether. The wet and the cold had taken their toll though, exacerbating existing concurrent lung and bowel infections and blessing me with a fever that night that shot vivid unsolicited images of mountains, trees and views, both remembered and imagined, through my mind whenever I closed my eyes, even to blink. It was initially entertaining but latterly overwhelming, so I've been munching ciprofloxacin like momos ever since.
We made McLeod Ganj a Delhi sandwich with two days there before and three days. Five days there was about all I could stand in terms of heat and pollution (it wasn't the sun that beat down on you there so much as a sun and smoke saturated skyfull of humidity, leaving a sweaty film of soot on your skin) and while thats not nearly long enough to explore such an old and expansive city, it was enough to foster an affection for the city which will no doubt see me return to it in cooler days. In betweeen air condition breaks for ice cold coffees at Baristas and beer and classic rock singalongs at Cafe Morrisson, Lori showed me around her sweltering city and I realised the many advantages it has over the only other major city I saw this summer, Bangalore. Every inch of Bangalore is crammed full of streets, buildings, mopeds, stalls and people, the only space to sling a monkey to be found at the top of the more oppressively towering buildings (the views from 13th Floor bar are to breathtaking I doubt slinging monkeys from it would even be considered animal cruelty). Whereas you could juggle monkeys walking down Delhi's wider streets, lined with giant trees and literally cavernous pavements; and shot putt gorillas in the large garden areas which are scattered arouind the city, often blanketing areas of historical, architectural or religious interest from the surrounding city sights, sounds and smells.
My preferred such pockets of peace were the Qutab Minar, an ancient phallic tower that has penetrated the surrounding skyline for nearly 1,000 years, growing larger as a result of two lightning strikes in that time, found amongst a contrasting selection of old islamic and older hindu remains, including the beginnings of a second tower whose girth looked set to support a height that would have put the Qutab Minar's manhood to shame, but whose erection was never completed; the lotus temple, which is exactly what it says on the tin: a huge temple in the shape of India's national lotus flower, selflessly built and maintained by people of the Bahá'í faith for all religion's prayer, worship and meditation; and the Dilli Haat, an idyillic family filled open air market with stalls from each Indian state selling the cream of the crop of Indian crafts, paintings, clothes, and most importantly, food.
I'm now on the megabus to Glasgow. THe roads are as quiet as mice and flexible as train tracks, and the steak I had for lunch at a nice English pub tasted nostalgically bland, but I'm not finding the UK as initially shocking as I'd predicted. I suppose London provides the perfect buffer solution of the dark and the light skinned. I'm six hours away from completing a trip with all wallets, passports, phones, bank accounts, bones and teeth intact for the first time, and I'm touching wood compulsively against ironic last minute jinxes. It goes unsaid that this has been the best summer of my life, likewise that I will be returning to India sooner rather than later. Bangalore , Hampi, Mysore, Pondicherry, Kodaikanal, Kochi and the backwaters of Kerala, McLeod Ganj and Delhi just happened to be the first treats my hand blindly snatched from the gigantic pick n mix bag that is India, and I'm now impatiently greedy for every last sweety. Apart from that, there is the small matter of a Lori Gupta to attend to. So in the cheesy final words of an Islamic Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Bollywood Terminator rip-off, Allah Be Back.
That was two weeks ago. Now I'm 36,000ft over Kiev, flying through a 46km/h wind at 855km/h. It will takes another 2 hours and 48 minutes to travel the remaining 2027km before landing in a partly cloudy London, where nearly 7,000km and I don't know how many months will seperate me from Lori Gupta, now my girlfriend. I'll be landing in a seriously long distance relationship at a time when I'm too busy to be flying to India every other weekend, however I am happily confident with my expectations of it, as the last two weeks have confirmed to me that I have found someone truly special, and the thought of seeing her again gives me a calm focus that will carry me through the unthinkably soon trials and tribulations of fourth year.
Enough mush, after all this evil plane is also taking me away from a country that has a lot more to offer than I had ever imagined. Me and Lori spent a week in McLeod Ganj, a hill station 1,750km high in the Himalayas, where the Dalai Lama's settled with flocks of Tibetans after being exiled in 1959. Lori was as much an ethnic minority as me for a change, as it was far more likely to encounter Buddhist monks in red robes oozing their inner peace down the street under rainbow striped umbrellas or dreadlocked American backpackers sitting in restaurants waxing political, philisophical and metaphysical, rather than the undiluteld masses of Indians I had become used to. The religion and food followed suit. An ornate Buddhist temple richly decorated with spinning prayer wheels, Tibetan script, gold and nightmarish elephants replaced the contrasting godless mosques and deity draped temples that normally alternate every street corner, and the rice was served with an entirely different spectrum of spicy sauces. Not that our diet deviated much from more and more mutton momos.
Yoga is an integral part of Tibetan Buddhism, and Lori, in spite of a full briefing and demonstration on my clumsy lack of coordination taught me some postures which stretched muscles I didn't know existed in directions they didn't know existed. All previous skepticism of it being fake lazy exercise has been replaced by respect and I intend to continue practising it in Dundee if I can overcome my fear of intense pain and snapping ligaments. Most of the time though, we just relaxed, enjoying our limited time together to the point of starvation then overcompensating with momos, and walking around the town and surrounding hills. One day we decided to nearly double our altitude by hiring a guide to trek us to Triund and back. Waterfalls, rivers, rain, mist and sweat soaked our ascent and at the top we shivered desperately over central heating for lungs and stomach. Our efforts were rewarded though, when the mist cleared after lunch to reveal the staggering rocky peaks of the surrounding Dhauladhar range and views of the ground below shrinking steadily out to the horizon, making our descent a drier and different experience altogether. The wet and the cold had taken their toll though, exacerbating existing concurrent lung and bowel infections and blessing me with a fever that night that shot vivid unsolicited images of mountains, trees and views, both remembered and imagined, through my mind whenever I closed my eyes, even to blink. It was initially entertaining but latterly overwhelming, so I've been munching ciprofloxacin like momos ever since.
We made McLeod Ganj a Delhi sandwich with two days there before and three days. Five days there was about all I could stand in terms of heat and pollution (it wasn't the sun that beat down on you there so much as a sun and smoke saturated skyfull of humidity, leaving a sweaty film of soot on your skin) and while thats not nearly long enough to explore such an old and expansive city, it was enough to foster an affection for the city which will no doubt see me return to it in cooler days. In betweeen air condition breaks for ice cold coffees at Baristas and beer and classic rock singalongs at Cafe Morrisson, Lori showed me around her sweltering city and I realised the many advantages it has over the only other major city I saw this summer, Bangalore. Every inch of Bangalore is crammed full of streets, buildings, mopeds, stalls and people, the only space to sling a monkey to be found at the top of the more oppressively towering buildings (the views from 13th Floor bar are to breathtaking I doubt slinging monkeys from it would even be considered animal cruelty). Whereas you could juggle monkeys walking down Delhi's wider streets, lined with giant trees and literally cavernous pavements; and shot putt gorillas in the large garden areas which are scattered arouind the city, often blanketing areas of historical, architectural or religious interest from the surrounding city sights, sounds and smells.
My preferred such pockets of peace were the Qutab Minar, an ancient phallic tower that has penetrated the surrounding skyline for nearly 1,000 years, growing larger as a result of two lightning strikes in that time, found amongst a contrasting selection of old islamic and older hindu remains, including the beginnings of a second tower whose girth looked set to support a height that would have put the Qutab Minar's manhood to shame, but whose erection was never completed; the lotus temple, which is exactly what it says on the tin: a huge temple in the shape of India's national lotus flower, selflessly built and maintained by people of the Bahá'í faith for all religion's prayer, worship and meditation; and the Dilli Haat, an idyillic family filled open air market with stalls from each Indian state selling the cream of the crop of Indian crafts, paintings, clothes, and most importantly, food.
I'm now on the megabus to Glasgow. THe roads are as quiet as mice and flexible as train tracks, and the steak I had for lunch at a nice English pub tasted nostalgically bland, but I'm not finding the UK as initially shocking as I'd predicted. I suppose London provides the perfect buffer solution of the dark and the light skinned. I'm six hours away from completing a trip with all wallets, passports, phones, bank accounts, bones and teeth intact for the first time, and I'm touching wood compulsively against ironic last minute jinxes. It goes unsaid that this has been the best summer of my life, likewise that I will be returning to India sooner rather than later. Bangalore , Hampi, Mysore, Pondicherry, Kodaikanal, Kochi and the backwaters of Kerala, McLeod Ganj and Delhi just happened to be the first treats my hand blindly snatched from the gigantic pick n mix bag that is India, and I'm now impatiently greedy for every last sweety. Apart from that, there is the small matter of a Lori Gupta to attend to. So in the cheesy final words of an Islamic Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Bollywood Terminator rip-off, Allah Be Back.