COME WITH ME TO...
written by: Jonathan Douglas
wild, but manageable, ride. We’re both well- traveled, open-minded people with a variety of international experiences in developing countries and beyond. We thought we knew what we were getting into.
W INDIA What we actually encountered in India
was an overwhelmingly complex barrage of contrasting sights, sounds and smells. Bustling throngs of thousands of people jostled for spots on a crowded train car. The yells of chai wallahs escaped from thousands of simultaneous Hindi conversations. Delicious smells from street vendors selling chaats or panipuris alternated with the foul smells of garbage and urine emanating from the rail tracks. Images of crippling poverty constantly appeared right beside the clean- pressed suits of businessmen boarding their air-conditioned cars, speaking flawless English on their iPhones.
The station’s system was organized chaos
at its finest. There were no large boards clearly spelling out what trains were at which platform. No railway employees were in sight. Yet it seemed that we were the only people lost in the confusion. Every train ran exactly on time to its destination, and every passenger inexplicably knew which stop was which, without any announcements or signs. Beneath the initial layer of madness, there was a smoothly orchestrated system.
The railway station is like a microcosm
representative of the whole of India. As the largest democracy in the world, and the second most populated country, India is a diverse array of the beautiful and the disgusting, the hectic and the efficient, displayed side-by-side. Luckily, the many wonders available in India, and in New Delhi alone, are worth it all. The magnificence of the Taj Mahal demands to be seen in person, and it is only the beginning of the cultural landmarks found in northern India. Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, sits amid the chaos of Old Delhi and the Red Fort. A wide range of Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jain, Baha’i and Sikh religious sites physically represent the extremely diverse population of India.
Oh, and the food! The taste of dosais,
masalas, and all the tandoori dishes available throughout the subcontinent make India a vegetarian’s–or just plain food lover’s–heaven. I still have dreams of drinking homemade Indian chai on the Himalayan mountaintops.
India offered us both an unforgettable
experience and one that I will treasure for the rest of my life. The country has its glaring problems, but if you can take the bad with the good, India will leave you awestruck.
photography by : Stephanie Leutert Pulse Magazine SWFL | 7
hen my girlfriend Stephanie and I bought our first train tickets from New Delhi to Agra, we expected a
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