Life in India

Life in India, part I - sleep

A-side

Ten ‘o clock at night, Delhi train station. The train we are supposed to take is late, hours late, not due before five in the morning. I am very tired, we have been walking around in the city all day and this city is incredibly crowded, hot, busy and bustling. We discuss and decide to try and find a hotel room. After an hour or so, we finally find a hotel with vacancies and we file into small, hot rooms with uncomfortable beds and noisy fans. The voices in the hallway outside my room keep me awake, together with all the smells that come drafting in. I do not really sleep at all. Four ‘o clock in the morning: our alarm goes off. We have to get up to take our train. A few of us go out to see if the train is really there. I am one of them. We trudge through the almost sleeping streets of Delhi only to find that the train has been delayed further. We go back to the hotel and send everyone off to bed again for another hours sleep. Six ‘o clock in the morning: we all file sleepy-eyed and exhausted through the streets to catch our train, which finally has arrived. We spread out on our bunk beds in the sleeping couch, and drift off, exhausted. What a night…

B-side

Ten ‘o clock at night, Delhi train station. I see a person sleeping on an old sack, half covered by rags. Only after a moment do I realise that there is another body hidden under these rags: a small child. A small child is sleeping with her father (or grandfather?) on the ground at the station. The train station is still busy, people walk by them all the time, step over them almost. They sleep. Four ‘o clock in the morning. In the almost sleeping streets of Delhi, beggars still hang around and ask for money or food. Some sleep sitting on doorsteps. I pass a parked rikshaw, and catch a glance of the driver, crammed into the backseat in an impossible position, but seemingly fast asleep. Is the rikshaw his home? Six ‘o clock in the morning, Delhi is wide awake. Beggars beg, vendors vend, and traffic is chaos. Nights in Delhi are short, if existant at all. Delhi never really sleeps, but its inhabitants somehow miraculously do.

Life in India, part II – food

A-side

Divali festival is upon us. The whole of India will celebrate light today, by setting off firecrackers and eating sweets. We have a day off and are planning a homemade meal. So the day before Divali we go shopping. We first go to a modern supermarket where we can get things like muesli and pasta. In the evening we go to a local market and buy flowers, vegetables and fruits. We fill our shopping bags with anything we please, and complain that the only desert we can make is fruit salad, for lack of ingredients and an oven. But on Divali we have a large breakfast of eggs, bread, yoghurt, muesli and coffee and later we have a lovely pasta dinner with cookies and fruit for desert. Happy Divali!

B-side

At the local market where we bought our food I see a woman making flower chains by tying together flowers she picks out of a basket beside her. I ask how much the chains cost. Five rupees per half meter. Fruit and vegetables cost at least 10 rupees per half kilo. It is already late, she has many flowers left over. I buy some of her flowers and wonder how her Divali meal will look like. When we have done all our shopping and are leaving the market it is late and dark. The market is packing up to close for the day. While we make our way to the waiting car I see several women and children rummaging between the garbage left by the market stands. They rummage between rotten vegetables and wilting banana leaves, hoping Divali market will leave them with some food for the night. I feel the weight of my shopping bag in my hand, and walk on, looking at the ground.

Life in India, part III – water

A-side

Water is a bit of problem for us here. Water from the tap we cannot drink, we will be sick they say. So on the road we are constantly buying water. Here in Trichy where we are staying now there is a water purifier in the house. We first cook the water, which then has to cool (which takes forever in this climate) before we can filter it. It is quite a procedure and takes a lot of energy to supply enough water for four people the whole time. It is so much easier with the tap water in Sweden. But if we are lazy we can always buy water, because we have money, no problem.

B-side

Waiting for the bus into town one day we stand at the bus stop. We stand in the little shade there is, because the weather is sweltering hot. Standing perfectly still, I feel the sweat running down my back. A little further down the road I see a homeless woman sitting by the side of the road, in the sun. She has no water bottle with her like we do. I look at her and wonder how much she drinks in a day, and where she gets water. Does she get sick when she drinks tap water? Is she immuun? Or is being sick the price she pays to survive with the water she can get?

Life in India, part IIII – possession

A-side

Delhi train station, we are reorganizing our bagage before leaving it at a baggage depot for safekeeping while we roam Delhi city. The eight of us from Sweden have a fair mountain of stuff. We all think we did not take along much stuff, but it still adds up. Backpacks are opened and closed, stuff moved around, computers switch backpack, locks are hung and chains put in place. Finally we are ready to go, leaving behind our small mountain of possessions, slightly worried if it will all still be there when we get back.

B-side

At the same time we are arranging our bagage, a little further down the platform a man is sleeping. He is lying on a plastic bag and has kind of a pink rag as a pillow. Before we are done he wakes up. He gets up, stretches out, and picks up the pink rag. Slowly and securely he winds it around his head. The rag is his turban. After a few minutes of concentrated arranging of the rag, he is finished. He leaves. The rag is all he carries around. I watch him go and wonder if the rag is possibly the only thing he owns as well.