Travel Blog: India, Day 8 - The Market
You ever watch a travel show on TV and watch the likes of Anthony Bourdain stroll through an obscure street market in Southeast Asia? Sitting at home in Pensacola, Florida, by far one of the most sensible conservative shopping environments one could find in the continental US, I always wondered if the markets in other countries were really that busy and colorful in other places, or if the TV crews purposefully shot them to look as exotic and non-Western as possible. Well, on this last trip to India, I found out. The markets really are that incredible.
After our harrowing race back to town, I accompanied my host through the back streets of the neighborhood to emerge in a brightly lit square, where the town market was in full swing. Again, my presence caused a bit of a splash. Several people followed me around to observe me in the most transparent way possible, eyes narrowed and mirroring my movements. I'm usually okay with the Indian street stare-downs, but I have to confess that it got a little old by this point; I actually started to wish that one unpleasant-looking codger in particular would make a move on me just so I could knock him down. But no harm was done on either side.
In most of India, meals are curried or fried. If the meal is an Indian fry-up, it's a pretty simple affair: chicken and oil, plus whichever vegetables are going to be served with the rice. Curry, however, requires quite a few ingredients, and they are usually bought fresh that day. The staple shopping list for a full curry meal, assuming that you don't have any herbs laying around, includes:
- Meat (usually chicken, sometimes goat or mutton)
- Onions
- Garlic
- Ginger
- Chiles
- Assorted vegetables
The above ingredients are simmered in a particular order in a bit of oil, spiced with turmeric and a few other seasonings, and eventually become a curry whose base ingredients are cooked down so as to be barely recognizable, but still incredibly tasty. My hosts all over the country were desperately hoping that I wouldn't be able to handle the spiciness of their curries--"is it too spicy for you?" seems to be the country's national motto--but I am proud to say that I was always able to eat Indian curry. The cumulative effect was less than optimal after a month, but I definitely enjoyed the the individual meals.
India, Day 8 - A Race.
I've written before about Indian traffic, an ongoing and constant phenomenon that would initiate wetting of the pants in most Western drivers. Lest you think that the highways in India always operates on a basis of "just the way it is," think again. Our driver, simply called "Driver" by my host, has been driving for twenty years. He is good. Very, very good. He can nudge cattle out of the way with a fender with less effort than it takes for most US drivers to coax sparks out of their cigarette lighters. Every now and again he would execute a particularly daring lane change and throw a grin in my direction, just to let me know that he drove to impress. Even in our language-barriered relationship, we became friends with a few common gestures and the phrase "no problem." And, at the end of this afternoon, I discovered that he takes it very personally when he is not allowed to rule the road uncontested.
We were on our way home, passing all other vehicles as per the norm, when a motorcyclist stubbornly refused to let Driver pass. Driver's eyes narrowed into a determined squint, and it was on like Donkey Kong. The Bolero revved, my host laughed in the backseat, and our afternoon turned into a Bollywood remake of Bullitt. Driver attempted pass after pass, but the canny motorcyclist cut him off every time, his purple plaid shirt flapping in the wind around his slender frame. A hint of peevishness played over Driver's face, but it was obvious that he was enjoying the race immensely.
I pride myself on my ability to relax in Indian traffic. I mean, when you're not the one driving, what can you do? Indian roads are best driven by resident Indians, and if I spend all my time second-guessing their every move, I would be wrinkled and gray-haired long before my time. However, as the race escalated and we roared through tiny villages, careening around women, children and animals in a series of closer and closer calls, I was forced to confront the true bounds of my comfort zone. I decided to remain silent and see if Driver was as good as he always seemed to be. And, to his credit, Driver may have caused a few people to drive out of the way, but he didn't hurt a soul. He still ranks as the only person I've ever seen who could drive 40km through a crowded street market without causing any damage to person or property.
Driver never did overtake the motorcycling son'v'gun. The cyclist drove on past our own final destination, and Driver was forced to pull up to a sharp stop. If he hadn't been a consummate professional under a verbal agreement to stop at the appointed coordinates, we might have chased the motorcycle until the Bolero coughed on its last fume of petrol and ground to a halt in the grey space between somewhere and nowhere.
India, Day 8 - The Village Sunday School Class
In the last of many, many stops on my busy eighth day in India, my host and I visited a friend of his who teaches children out of his home every day. The kids had some pretty unforgettable faces.
Travel Blog: India, Day 8 - The kids at the riverbank.
While at my host's cheerful home village, an oasis in the middle of abject and depressed poverty state in India, we met a group of children doing laundry in the nearby river. Let me see...
A gaggle of village kids. India. A river. An open field of epic proportions.
Why, yes, a photo op was in order.
Every time I visit India, I am always amazed and overjoyed by the people's capacity for kindness, unhindered friendliness and hospitality, and their sheer willingness to participate. Shy though they were, this group of children stayed true to Indian hospitality by eagerly smiling and waving at the camera when I started clicking the shutter. They giggled and laughed elatedely when I turned the SLR around showed them their photos in the camera's monitor. I took dozens of photos of the little guys. I don't know what these children's lives are like on a normal day, but in that environment, with those kinds of smiles, they made this scene look absolutely idyllic.
