Travel to India: Part 2

 India, Journal 2:  This city is trying to kill me.  I’m not sure, but it could be because I have red hair. On the other hand, the fear of death seems primary motivating factor out here sometimes.  So far, I’ve had three different sicknesses, multiple near death experiences, and I’ve breathed a poisonous fume that would rival the darkest lands of Mordor.  Never before have I seen so many awesome things and so many insane things all at once.

The first day was very much a stress test.  Sure - I have become accustomed to the toilet with two buttons to flush it and the combination garden/kitchen hose in the bathroom. And yes, I’ve gotten used to housekeeping coming in at all hours with my underpants.  Freshly ironed underpants.

 

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hose things are... fine. What I haven’t been prepared for is all the different ways India tries to KILL you. The first day was really a test of death by traffic.  Nothing about the traffic makes any sense. People drive the wrong way ON THE FREEWAY.

I want to take a minute here, because I need you to fully grasp the gravity of what I’m staying.  People hurtle at oncoming traffic at as close to infinity kilometers per hour as their vehicle will allow.  I have no idea how fast a kilometer/hour measurement is.  But we went LOTS of them per hour.  

Cars in India are fine I suppose, except I think they were all created before the invention of modern vehicle suspension.  My head now tilts about twenty degrees to the right from frequent collisions with the roof of the car.  Meridian in the way of an easy turn to your exit? SMASH IT TO THE GROUND AND DRIVE OVER THE CRATER.  That’s right.  If you can’t turn somewhere because of something, you destroy the something and drive on with impunity.

 

The other problem is the noxious gas.  At five o’clock in the morning, all of the smog from the sky sinks to the ground.  It really smells as if a collection of rabid, infected dogs died in the drain of a sewage treatment plant and someone thought it would be a good idea to toss the bodies on a tire fire.  That's the smell. On a good day, that’s what it smells like.  This might have something to do with the fact we drive past a river that also serves as a toilet, bathtub, and day spa.  What blows me away is how happy these people are.  Never before have I seen people who have so little who are so happy.  Even our drivers are thrilled, and they work six days a week. Plus I’m pretty sure they pick us up at 5 AM and drop one of the crews off at 11:30 PM.  I have no idea when those guys sleep, but I have never seen them unalert on the freeway.  

The drivers communicate with car horns.  Every major vehicle has fancy calligraphy on the back that says exactly these words – over and over again: “Horn Okay Please.”  Over and over again on the freeway – big trucks, usually filled over capacity, with five guys sitting in the back and the words “Horn Okay Please.”  Occasionally, we’ll see an Elephant with facepaint, and sometimes we’ll see a family of four on a motorcycle.  My favorite so far was a guy riding a motorcycle wearing an 1850’s style Samurai Helmet, complete with awesome dragon facemask and golden crescent moon shaped horn-ornament on top.  He’s probably the coolest guy in India. In America, we'd call that guy 'Chad' and he'd live with his parents and work in the warehouse section of a Best Buy. In India, who knows?

With characters like Chad, it’s amazing we have survived as long as we have.

 

That brings me to the second day.  I learned very quickly that the head of Reliance’s Media Division is a passionate vegetarian.  So passionate is he, in fact, that he serves everyone at the building ONLY vegetarian foods. Meat would not be served during at least two of my three meals per day - I have, however, discovered a fondness for samosas.  

Sprite: Obey Your Srusht.

On my second day of work, I had for breakfast several pieces of banana bread. I actually asked for toast, but got none. I have asked for toast every morning. I have asked for toast each DAY I have been in India.  My waiter clearly understands. He always asks if I want white bread.  Then he asks if I want butter. He nods to me and scurries off - seemingly to obtain aforementioned toast.  But no toast ever arrives. 

I don’t know what happens to my toast.  I assume it vanished to the mysteriously absent 4^th or 5^th floors of the building, but one can never be too sure of toast in India.

 

Having eaten my banana bread and muffin flavored with double bland, I headed to the office, where I was treated to four different kinds of rice for lunch - all of which was actually pretty good!

 

Now, I’m not sure if it was the banana bread from the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet no toast guy or the rice, but I began to feel a little ill. Queasy you might say – as if my stomach were punching me in the ribs begging me for something simple and easy to digest – something mild – something like toast, I guess.  But since it was lunchtime, and toast was not available, I had to make due. I immediately took one of my antibiotic pills.  This particular one was called cipromaximus stomachus deathus. Or something. Within the deepest reaches of my intestines, I could feel a drama playing out as whatever virulent, evil, Captain Trips strain of viral death to laughed at the feeble capsule I had lain at its feet. Upon returning to our hotel, I immediately drank some water.  Upon arriving in my bathroom, I un-drank water.  I spent the further part of the day and 98% of the ensuing night frozen in state that must have looked very much like a member of one U.S. political party shouting down the other, except one of them was a toilet, so probably more wholesome.

 

I must have thrown up for a solid six hours.  After this point, there couldn’t possibly have been food in my stomach, but I threw up anyway. If I had to guess, my bowels somehow moved into the future during the time-zone change and I was actually vomiting food I hadn’t even eaten yet.  I may have been delirious, but I’m pretty sure at one point my feet were coming out of my mouth.

 

After literally purging any mass I had left in me down to my toes and beyond, and after subsequently collecting my shoes from the toilet, I proceeded to get two painful, short hours of rest, give or take. Despite this unfortunate near death experience, I STILL woke up at five AM and I STILL went to work.  It was the hardest day of work I’ve ever put in during my lifetime.  Imagine throwing up so much your entire body structure aches.  Now imagine your stomach is at it’s weakest point in twenty years. Now imagine taking that broken body and weak stomach inside of an SUV death box barreling down the freeway with literally no suspension over destroyed freeway medians. Now imagine how peaceful death in a wood box sounds. 

There was a bright side though – the frequent collisions between my head and the top of the SUV made it so I didn’t even have to turn my head – if I needed to puke, I could just roll down the window and easily unleash a rainbow yawn all over the samurai warrior motorcycle rider next to us. Sorry Indian Chad.

 

That didn’t happen.  And thankfully, my life was saved by the most unlikely of characters.  Not a man, not a doctor, not an angel, but something far more amazing and miraculous.  A McNugget. THE McNugget.  

Bless McDonalds – they do have some crap food out here – I don’t think I have to mention the Maharaja Mac or the Veg McPuff (oh yes – both very real) but damned if they didn’t have Chicken McNuggets and French fries.  And they were delicious.  I will admit that in America, nuggets and fries both have a mild taste of beef, which these McNuggets lacked, but they were still so good, the non-beefiness was easily forgiven.  Though eating McNuggets can, depending on cook times, sometimes be almost, but not entirely unlike swallowing a handful of razorblades (the McNugget is a harsh Mistress) these were like eating the first Snickers bar of in and Easter basket – only good things could happen from here.  Religious connotations aside, the McNugget was my intestinal messiah after an intense and spiritual exorcism.

 

Since then, the food quality has maintained a reasonable amount of safety and most is more than palatable as well.  Breakfast was also a fine meal.  However, the worst vomiting I have ever had was replaced with the worst COLD I ever had. I can only guess that no-toast guy is gathering sick guys from the streets, checking their symptoms, and having each of them lick my banana bread before it has been served to me. I'm not sure if he hates me because I have a most unusual shade of red hair, I'm comparatively a giant, or because I'm wealthy by comparison. I honestly don't know. But somewhere there's a giant stack of hot, buttered toast being handed out to those less fortunate and cursed with a native seasonal cold in exchange for licking a piece of banana bread.

Some days, I think I might be wrong, and I'm just not understanding this unique culture - but in hindsight, I'm pretty sure I'm actually just the banana bread in this analogy.