Monday, 5 September 2011

Mild Observations About India so Far (Joe's grumbles)

Tanya wants me to make sure this is a solitary post, nought to do with her at all.

1. People here suffer from OCD. It's the only explanation for having a clean hand and a dirty hand. Honestly, why have a dirty hand anyway? Just have two clean hands and be happy with that.

2. How often do you need to phlegm on the ground? How congested with snot do you need to be to spit it out every two minutes? Normal pavement turns to swampy grounds when men, women, children, dogs and cows are projectiling every few minutes.

3. Impatience. It's everywhere. Even a cow butted Lorna with it's head, even though she had the right of way. Honking horns and pushing into queues. What do they need to do so urgently that they can't wait 30 seconds for someone to cross the road safely?

4. Cows in India are arrogant. You can see it in their eyes. They know they're worshipped.

5. I've never seen so many people lying around doing nothing. I thought we'd be the ones laying around all day sunbathing.

6. The ocean (or any water feature) seems to be India's bin. I've seen people on a train wait til we cross a river to throw their rubbish into the water. It's disgusting!

7. Men in India hold hands and cuddle when walking down the street. It's seen as friendship here but I can't see me convincing people back home to do it. I've never had my bare knee patted so frequently by men whilst sitting on a moving vehicle.

Most of these things are at their very worst in Mumbai. The beach in Mumbai is literally covered in rubbish and was a real shock to see. The people were very rude there and there wasn't much to see. Delhi had so much more character and so much more to see and do. Although I have to point out that one of my favourite experiences of India so far was when we were walking home to our hotel through the slums and came across a festival celebrating the elephant god Ganesh. The slum locals could have seen us to be intruding but invited us to dance with them and celebrate. It was amazing and we saw the best character of the city that night.

So it wasn't all grumbles...

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