Trade As One

Amy’s take:

Touchdown in India and I knew I was in an alien land. Of the places I have visited, from Uganda to Mexico to the south of France, none could be likened to this.

As soon as my feet met the ground outside of the airport, I was hit with a wave of sweltering heat, the kind that causes moisture to immediately bead up on your skin and thirst to simultaneously parch your throat. A few minutes later, some rupee notes slapped into the hands of a surly parking attendant, and we were headed off into the Mumbai traffic. By off I mean off to a standstill. Ten years spent living in central London and struggling through its constant traffic jams seemed like a breeze in comparison with the lock jam that we now encountered. While there were many cars on the road, there were far more three-wheeled black and yellow auto-rickshaws, weaving their way through minute spaces between vehicles (there are no lanes in Indian traffic, merely a size hierarchy: trucks trump cars and rickshaws, rickshaws trump motorcycles and bikes, and bikes trump people).

Rickwalas (auto-rickshaw drivers) and truck drivers alike feverishly honked their horns, leaving a permanent ringing through my ears. These sights and sounds were accompanied by the lurching motion of the car forcefully braking every few feet and the constant fear of hitting the vehicle trying to cut in front of us, or one of the hundreds of people putting their lives in mortal danger as they fearlessly crossed the road. Little did we know how accustomed we would become to these novelties by the time we returned to the West three weeks later.

Lindsay’s take:

I now can’t remember just what I expected to find in India, but for some reason culture shock conveniently didn’t catch up with me until about four days before we left.

From the moment my sister, mum, and I arrived in Mumbai, India accosted us with its smells, sounds, and sights, both familiar: chains like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, and strange: cows blocking intersections and Hindi roadsigns. We didn’t have time to be shocked; we simply had to keep up with the pace. I liken it to the road-crossing protocol to which Amy alluded: steel your nerves, grit your teeth, and go for it. Don’t look back or hesitate, or you might get run over.

Though slightly uncomfortable to be such an obvious spectacle (as a white, short-haired, twenty-something year old female), I found myself staring back with equal interest at the bright saris that women effortlessly sport even atop motorcycles. I unabashedly grilled our Indian friends about the ingredients in their delicious curries, dahls, and stews. I snapped countless pictures of roadside vendors, auto-rickshaws, and strangers with gusto.

There were, however, things about India that, from our first day, I found less agreeable. Rubbish bags that littered practically every inch of ground, the energy-sapping heat and humidity (before the monsoon thankfully arrived), and the innumerable people filling roadsides, slums, buses, and restaurants. Something our friend and host said when she picked us up from the airport stuck in my mind as the backdrop for our trip: “Life in India is neither valued or valuable. Because when quantity goes up, worth goes down.”

We found this statement reiterated throughout our time in India, but as we visited different organizations working toward social justice, we were refreshed to find it cracked wide open. More about that in coming posts…