Thoughts on the trip - now flying south

Cameron and I are sitting in the regional airport in Delhi on the way to Chennai. We said our goodbyes to Alex and Chris, and also to Kimi who was so good to all of us over the last two weeks. In fact, Alex and Chris don’t need to be at the international airport until 8pm tonight so they are now on a last sightseeing trip of Delhi, with Kimi of course. Delhi is, at the moment, encased in fog with an average temp of about 15, bitterly cold by Indian standards so sightseeing will likely be punctuated by doses of coffee and chai masala or Kingfisher beer or, in extreme circumstances, whisky and warm water.


I think there are things about the past two weeks that will stick in my mind, like the day at lunch that Cameron conjured up Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. “For a good time, make it a Kingfisher”. An ode to all the Kingfisher beer we drank. Or Alex, commenting on how the lack of decent infrastructure on the roads makes the country so much bigger than it really is (ie: takes you longer to get anywhere so 50 kms is a big deal).

I will never forget the two Indias – the crushing poverty you see on the highways and back roads where children are borne because they can earn an extra 50 rupees a day for the family, and the middle class India you see on TV and in this airport or the hotels. Every hotel or flight we have been on is patronized by the Indian middle class – a very good thing in my view.

Christina had the seat at the very back of the SUV, in the third row where she holed up with a book by Rohinton Mistry. She is the only one I know who can read in the car - I just get sick – and Kimi kept looking back to make sure she was still there. Eventually, she got the name bookwallee – as in woman who works with books. After a while she got the name Toiletwallee because she voiced what we all felt was needed, but it was really Bookwallee that stuck.

Wallah/Wallee became very popular in the car once Alex latched on to it. He would check with Kimi about the proper name with which to attach wallah. “So he is carrying our bags. Does that make him at bagwallah? to which Kimi would say, “No, he is a Luggagewallah.” Alex was the Recieptswallah because every time we had to cross the border into a new state there was a tax to pay – we also crossed between months and the tax has to be paid every month. Alex would handle and organize the receipts so Kimi could get us back on the road a little faster.

There are parts to this trip that I will never forget. All of us kept telling Alex that he could never really know India because he didn’t come with us to Varanasi. It became a joke as in, “I think…” to which we would reply “But you can’t really know India because you were not in Varanasi”. And Alex would say, “so this is how it will be? I can’t have thoughts?” “Very Nasty” as we have come to call it was our trial by trial by gastroenteritis, our very own search for the ecstatic (still looking).

This has truly been a sampler pack of India. So many hotels, so little time. I definitely want to come back and am looking forward to South India but travelling here is not easy and the lack of general organization can be wearing if you need to be somewhere. Better to go by India Stretchable Time, as it is called here. You really can’t do anything about it so just enjoy. Pics in the next posting.