Rooftop Ruminations

I have arrived in Varanasi. Insects instantly clung to the stank smell that only thirty-five hours of travel can produce. As soon as I emerged from the cobalt blue sleeper car I was barraged on a number of senses. While I was still orienting myself a small man in a tailored pink button up shirt directed me to the exit. I quickly discovered that his immediate willingness to lend a hand was because he drove a motor rickshaw... damn rickshaw drivers. As soon as I was able, I was being ushered through hundreds of strewn out bodies littering the train station courtyard, most of which were alive, towards a very typical and obnoxious Indian Tuk Tuk stand.

"Where you going?" He asks in a typical Hindi-English accent.

"Old Yogi Lodge, near Sarkakand Gali," I respond with an appropriate amount of solidarity in my voice.

And then with a little gas and a few tugs on the starter we were off. Once again navigating our way through throngs of honking and constipated Indian traffic. Varanasi, like every other Indian city has a very distinct smell. All cities activate the same part of you olfactory center, but each is slightly different than the last. I suppose if you average a few million people, their pheromones and body odor, waste products and nourishment materials with a sensible dash of pollution and a few thousand head of cattle this is what you get. Strangely however, I have come to enjoy it. The honking and insistent amount of noise pollution bother me more than the grungy air that makes your lungs seize in bewilderment. When the air is completely saturated with pollution every sunset has a fiery crimson glow to it that isn't possible without man's harmful brushstrokes on creation.

India, I love it and i hate it. I want to get as far away as possible, but can not wait to come back. Strange as it may be, I think this will be a place I grow quite fond of... once I am gone. I know that sounds bad, but I think that people's appreciation for this place is best realized their second, third or even fourth time they come back. But the fact that they come back speaks loudly. The overwhelming amount of movement and activity in this place produces its own gravity. And, people come back. Understandable I guess. There is no way to shape any of our western/American schemas to prepare for any part of India. It is entirely different. Beautifully different.