"We are in India now, Pune to be exact. We arrived at the Mumbai Airport at around 3am, and I am now sitting on the rooftop of our hotel. Arriving at the airport, even at 3 am, we were surrounded by masses of people, waiting. Waiting for what, I don't know. I feel the people here are used to waiting. Waiting for someone, something. We grabbed a cab, to begin our journey to Pune, and stopped in Mulund to visit a friend of Jatin's.
On the 11th floor, entering into her apartment, I notice everything. Her two-year-old daughter's scribbles on the walls, her husbands trousers on a clothes line, strung through the only two rooms of the apartment. An unknown man sleeps face down on a mattress on the floor. It's obvious the amount of pride this friend has for her apartment, and offers me a seat on her bed, filtered water, and an open window overlooking the huge metropolis of Mumbai.
Outside, a large gate protects her sleeping family from unknown people, stray dogs and the piles of garbage heaped just outside the barrier. Her husband and herself work full time, and have spent their meager life savings on this apartment. Her daughter, asleep in their bed, is oblivious to the soft Hindi being spoke around her in the small bedroom.
Once back outside, after offering many thanks for the hospitality, we are once again on the road. Outside the gated apartment, the streets pavement turns to gravel, and back again, without warning. There are no lanes, and the use of rear-view mirrors is obsolete. Honking litters the air, as well as a million different odors and dirt that assault me in the backseat. Mangy dogs lay in the road, barely acknowledging as small cars and huge buses soar around them.
Plots of tents are set up, and smoke rises from a few, signaling an early breakfast. Huge, glossy billboards with beautiful high-rises pictured upon them sit among the shacks and small huts. The obvious division of class is emphasized, driving through the slums of Mumbai, when Jatin mentions a man who recently built a billion dollar home in the city. A man, picking through the trash in heaps on the roadside, is oblivious to the mansion.
Men grip one another atop worn out motorcycles, weaving in and out of fast-paced traffic. They honking their weak horns to avoid being sideswiped by fabric covered trucks with painted tin doors. As we drive away from the city, the smells and sights are much less offensive, but the honking and traffic never ceases.
Mountains ride up around us as we wind up and around bluish-gray hills. Huge tunnels jut between the hills, dividing the traffic as they cut through the rock. The sky, almost an ashy pink by now, settles among the gray and blue mountains peaks.
I try to keep an open mind, as I squat over a stinking "toilet" at a small rest stop. Shops divide and open up to huge stairs, and the toilet is the only one I find among the grooves of porcelain meant for what I had to do. After I wipe my hands on my jeans, I grab a Red Bull, a bottle of water and a bag of regular Lays potato chips, the only American things I could find among the foreign candy and snacks. I secretly pray the top to my Red Bull is clean enough to drink from as I pop the top and take a sip.
As I sit up on the roof now, the sounds of beeps and horns, crows cawing, and some kind of firework (hopefully) echos through the air. I keep wondering why anyone would ever want to live here, and I flash back to Jatin's friend, and the pride in her eyes at the showing of her hard earned apartment. I've been here only five hours, and I think this trip is going to teach me a lot.
I have eight days left."
Outside, a large gate protects her sleeping family from unknown people, stray dogs and the piles of garbage heaped just outside the barrier. Her husband and herself work full time, and have spent their meager life savings on this apartment. Her daughter, asleep in their bed, is oblivious to the soft Hindi being spoke around her in the small bedroom.
Once back outside, after offering many thanks for the hospitality, we are once again on the road. Outside the gated apartment, the streets pavement turns to gravel, and back again, without warning. There are no lanes, and the use of rear-view mirrors is obsolete. Honking litters the air, as well as a million different odors and dirt that assault me in the backseat. Mangy dogs lay in the road, barely acknowledging as small cars and huge buses soar around them.
Plots of tents are set up, and smoke rises from a few, signaling an early breakfast. Huge, glossy billboards with beautiful high-rises pictured upon them sit among the shacks and small huts. The obvious division of class is emphasized, driving through the slums of Mumbai, when Jatin mentions a man who recently built a billion dollar home in the city. A man, picking through the trash in heaps on the roadside, is oblivious to the mansion.
Men grip one another atop worn out motorcycles, weaving in and out of fast-paced traffic. They honking their weak horns to avoid being sideswiped by fabric covered trucks with painted tin doors. As we drive away from the city, the smells and sights are much less offensive, but the honking and traffic never ceases.
Mountains ride up around us as we wind up and around bluish-gray hills. Huge tunnels jut between the hills, dividing the traffic as they cut through the rock. The sky, almost an ashy pink by now, settles among the gray and blue mountains peaks.
I try to keep an open mind, as I squat over a stinking "toilet" at a small rest stop. Shops divide and open up to huge stairs, and the toilet is the only one I find among the grooves of porcelain meant for what I had to do. After I wipe my hands on my jeans, I grab a Red Bull, a bottle of water and a bag of regular Lays potato chips, the only American things I could find among the foreign candy and snacks. I secretly pray the top to my Red Bull is clean enough to drink from as I pop the top and take a sip.
As I sit up on the roof now, the sounds of beeps and horns, crows cawing, and some kind of firework (hopefully) echos through the air. I keep wondering why anyone would ever want to live here, and I flash back to Jatin's friend, and the pride in her eyes at the showing of her hard earned apartment. I've been here only five hours, and I think this trip is going to teach me a lot.
I have eight days left."
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