Making it to the safety and serenity of an airline seat has never been a more joyful moment.
Four days on the subcontinent lead me to a simple thesis: India is an incredible contradiction. On the surface, it seems that this place shouldn’t be so distant: English is a major language, colonial heritage is shared with the likes of Hong Kong, and a billion potential voters make this the world’s largest democracy. Even after a year of five continents and 100,000+ miles of air travel, however, India is decidedly the most foreign experience of my life.
Making it onboard a Delhi-bound flight was a small miracle in itself. On Wednesday, I shot straight back to my apartment to pack for the holiday after my last exam finished at 7 PM; by 9 PM, I was on my way to the airport for an overnight flight to Chicago. Upon a 5 AM arrival in the Windy City, I was dusted with a fresh layer of snow while I navigated the city bus system to the Indian Consulate. Seven hours and an unexpected amount of groveling later, I was issued a tourist visa and was on my way back to the airport for an evening departure to Delhi. Fifteen hours of alarm clock-free sleep later, I stepped into a whole new world.
The intensity of India hit me in my first breath stepping off the plane. The stuffy, fume-filled air of the jetbridge initially made me worry something had been wrong with our aircraft, but stepping inside the terminal and looking across an entire room of this haze made me realize that such air quality was “normal.”
The 10 PM arrival in Delhi made me particularly glad that I had secured accommodations while Stateside through the proxy help of my parents and hotels.com (Globalization lesson: the cost of a DVD in America will buy you an air-conditioned hotel room with airport pickup and breakfast in India). Upon arrival, I discovered that pay phones are an innovation that has not yet reached the Delhi airport, prompting me to take a deep breath before stepping out of the safety of the airport into the warm darkness of a continent on which I didn’t know a soul. Thankfully, I soon found my driver holding the “Bajaj Indian Homestay Welcomes John D” placard and set off for three days of adventure.
My Indian immersion plans weren’t two complex: two days in Delhi, one day in Agra (home of the Taj Mahal). The crowds, confusion, and conniving cunning of these surroundings, however, made for an extraordinarily engaging experience. Accomplishing anything outside the four walls of my hotel room seemed to require a scheme to be unraveled, a local to be paid off, or a danger to be avoided.
Since mass transit for a foreigner seemed to be a laughable proposition, I hired a driver for both days spent in Delhi (Bonus globalization lesson: the price of a movie ticket in California is the same as a car and driver for eight hours in Delhi). More than on-demand chauffeurs, these drivers led me to a number of cultural spots that I was interested in and a few “travel agencies” and “tourist stores” that I was not particularly thrilled about. Taken in stride, though, these two days allowed me to enjoy a diversity of temples, monuments, museums, markets.
As I write, I’m genuinely astonished that my journey did not end in a fiery collision on the streets of Delhi. I’ve experienced some exotic driving in China and Argentina, but nothing prepared me for the Go-Kart track that unfolds daily on the streets of the Subcontinent. One particularly artery-cleansing episode occurred en route to the airport for my flight home; due to train delays, I was running late for my flight and had asked a friendly English-speaking acquaintance from the train to help me negotiate an urgent taxi trip. Whatever Hindi words my translator told the taxi driver made the man drive like his life depended on it: he shaved the typical hour journey to the airport into an 18 minute rampage of honking, flashing, crossing medians, and passing with mere inches to spare. In addition to providing impetus to sort out my plans for the afterlife, that ride assured me that there is not a single traffic cop in Delhi.
And so, though the opportunity to dive into an entirely alien world for a few days is one I will not soon forget, I’ve never been so content with “normal.”
