India: Are You F***ing Kidding Me?
Sorry for the vulgarity, but visit the Indian Subcontinent and tell me if you don’t find more applications for this 5 word phrase than anywhere else in the world. Between all the delicious curries and breathtaking sights, you’ll see so many scenes that leave you aghast and asking yourself, “Are you f***ing kidding me?”
I could go on for pages and pages about this one, but I’ll just limit myself to the first pair of places that pop into my head: the streets of Delhi and the Burning Ghats of Varanasi.
Take Delhi. Most places in the world are fairly difficult to describe in a paragraph. Delhi isn’t. Here is its essence in just on word: MADNESS. Close your eyes and picture the worst rush hour possible and extend it to 24 hours. Now crank up the MADNESS knob past ten. If you imagined reckless rickshaws, homicidal taxis bent on taking you as far as possible from your destination, carts selling everything from produce to orphans, face-painted shamans chanting at the sky, street kids chasing after you for money, and packs of unyielding dogs and goats, then you’re starting to get the picture. Now, take away the painted traffic lanes, crosswalks, and 2/3rds of our traffic laws, and mix in a dash of con artists trying to get you to “export rubies” and a few men and women screaming belligerently at no one in particular, just trying to play their part in this orgy of entropy.
The only things that seem to impose order in Delhi are cows. If there is just one certainty in India, it’s that no one will ever harm these sacred Hindu animals (on pain of death). Carts, cars, taxis, pedestrians, and modes of transportation that you’ve never seen or dreamed of skirt around them at full speed, careening into (and of course injuring) each other, as the culprits meander happily through the middle of head-on traffic, knowing that they are king of their domain.
Enter Varanasi, one of the holiest cities of Hinduism. People come here for 2 reasons: to bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges River and to die. At Manikanika Ghat (the “Burning Ghat”), fires are alight 24 hours a day. It’s no marshmallow roast they’re having; look closely and you’ll see a pair of legs sticking out from the end of the flames. This is where people are creamated to have their ashes cast out into the Ganges. Cows, goats, and dogs rummage between fires, scavenging for edibles, while ships carrying firewood piled 2 stories high wait their turn at the docks. Just off-shore, a group of men wade waist deep in the ashy water, sifting for gold earings and jewelry that may have been set adrift with the charred bodies. Some people, like lepers and children, are not permitted to get creamated, so instead they have large stones tied to them and are simply sunk to the bottom of the river. On any given day, a number of degenerated bodies float back to the surface.
According to the Lonely Planet travel guide, surveys of the Ganges River have shown that there are nearly 1.5 million fecal cholera bacteria per 100mL… safe bathing water should be less than 500. And less than 20 meters away from the burning and sinking of bodies, pilgrims are fully immersing themselves in the same dirty waters, going so far as to use their fingers to brush their teeth with it.
Are you f***ing kidding me?
I could go on for pages and pages about this one, but I’ll just limit myself to the first pair of places that pop into my head: the streets of Delhi and the Burning Ghats of Varanasi.
Take Delhi. Most places in the world are fairly difficult to describe in a paragraph. Delhi isn’t. Here is its essence in just on word: MADNESS. Close your eyes and picture the worst rush hour possible and extend it to 24 hours. Now crank up the MADNESS knob past ten. If you imagined reckless rickshaws, homicidal taxis bent on taking you as far as possible from your destination, carts selling everything from produce to orphans, face-painted shamans chanting at the sky, street kids chasing after you for money, and packs of unyielding dogs and goats, then you’re starting to get the picture. Now, take away the painted traffic lanes, crosswalks, and 2/3rds of our traffic laws, and mix in a dash of con artists trying to get you to “export rubies” and a few men and women screaming belligerently at no one in particular, just trying to play their part in this orgy of entropy.
The only things that seem to impose order in Delhi are cows. If there is just one certainty in India, it’s that no one will ever harm these sacred Hindu animals (on pain of death). Carts, cars, taxis, pedestrians, and modes of transportation that you’ve never seen or dreamed of skirt around them at full speed, careening into (and of course injuring) each other, as the culprits meander happily through the middle of head-on traffic, knowing that they are king of their domain.
Enter Varanasi, one of the holiest cities of Hinduism. People come here for 2 reasons: to bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges River and to die. At Manikanika Ghat (the “Burning Ghat”), fires are alight 24 hours a day. It’s no marshmallow roast they’re having; look closely and you’ll see a pair of legs sticking out from the end of the flames. This is where people are creamated to have their ashes cast out into the Ganges. Cows, goats, and dogs rummage between fires, scavenging for edibles, while ships carrying firewood piled 2 stories high wait their turn at the docks. Just off-shore, a group of men wade waist deep in the ashy water, sifting for gold earings and jewelry that may have been set adrift with the charred bodies. Some people, like lepers and children, are not permitted to get creamated, so instead they have large stones tied to them and are simply sunk to the bottom of the river. On any given day, a number of degenerated bodies float back to the surface.
According to the Lonely Planet travel guide, surveys of the Ganges River have shown that there are nearly 1.5 million fecal cholera bacteria per 100mL… safe bathing water should be less than 500. And less than 20 meters away from the burning and sinking of bodies, pilgrims are fully immersing themselves in the same dirty waters, going so far as to use their fingers to brush their teeth with it.
Are you f***ing kidding me?
posted by Sean | 6:45 AM
1 Comments:
Hahaha oh Sean. I don't have the time nor energy at the moment to go into it, but I feel your pain. I just got back recently from spending 16 days in India (Delhi, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Ranakpur, Udaipur, Jaipur, Agra, Delhi). I, too, had to endure Delhi twice.
If only I had a dollar for every time I had the same thought: "Are you f***ing kidding me?!"
happy travels!
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