Amy Gajaria

June 12 2009

As I write this, the sky has just split open to release the weight that has pressed upon it for the past three days.  I couldn’t be happier, as it means the air has chilled and that the landscape has changed – acquiring new contours amidst the change in light.  The green of the trees in the foothills seems suddenly deeper, the gray sky sharpening the mountain peaks off in the distance.  Of course, I’ve always been partial to rain, and it doesn’t hurt that I’m watching it pour from beneath a gently humming fan in the Parnath Nikin Ashrazm, a book by Kazuo Ishiguro by my side.

Such a contrast to the rest of my day, when, after being bitten by a monkey (!), I had to travel quite a distance to Dehra Dun to get a rabies shot.  While at first the whole thing was annoying and ever so slightly terrifying, my forced adventure gave me a chance to see an India away from the traditional tourist track.  A few days ago, I returned to Rishikesh from my first encounter with the rabies vaccine on the back of a motorcycle, widening my way up hairpin turns that led back into the Himalayan foothills.  The feeling of the wind on my face, combined with the speed of the bike and the adrenaline surges of experiencing Indian traffic so viscerally were incredible things to experience.  Today, I travelled to Dehra Dun and back via public bus and auto rickshaw, an adventure that involved bargaining with  the rickshaw driver, and navigating the bus terminal where all signs were in Hindi.  It wasn’t the most comfortable journey, but after I managed to do it all by myself, It was the most wonderful feeling of independence!  I feel so much more confident about travelling through India now.

I chose to take an auto rickshaw instead of a vikram (autos are like private taxis, whereas vikrams are a sort of crammed small city bus; vikrams cost 5-10rs while my auto cost 50 rs), and while the comfort of having a whole cab to myself was a much needed break from the chaos around, the luxury began to feel quite uncomfortable.  On  all sides of me, people were pressed together in vikrams or squeezed into cars.

Though I was only paying the equivalent of $2.50 CDN (about the price of a public bus ride in Canada), I began to feel as though I were being unreasonably extravagant.  I began to think about the equivalent of this ride – the public bus I would later take 52km to Dehra Dun was only 30Rs, and a decent lunch often runs for 40Rs, and I’m learning that even these prices are no small expense for the local population.

I constantly feel torn between getting angry when I feel “ripped off” by being charged tourist prices and feeling guilty for having so much in contrast to so many that have so little.  During my extravagant ride, I saw two little kids picking lychee fruit out of piles of garbage.  I can’t imagine the kind of poverty that leads to having to do that, and also cannot quite reconcile how it exists alongside the opulent wealth of other sector of the population.  Yet another Indian conflict I’m sure I won’t resolve by the end of my time here.

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Previous Posts

On the Road :: Waiting for Love - June 10 2009 
On the Road :: All Aboard Dehran Dun - June 9 2009
On the Road :: Hello India - June 4 2009