The Wander Years: Passage to India

The reports we'd received from fellow travelers had partially prepared us for culture shock of landing in Delhi. Of the words we'd heard used to describe traveling in India, "overwhelming" had featured prominently, and it wasn't long before we realized why. From the first taxi ride into the capital city, every sense was assaulted with the impression that India was even more India than we ever could have imagined. Streets crammed with vendors, dogs, cows, and motorcycles. Driving worthy of Grand Theft Auto. Smells of burning wood, incense, exhaust, and curries. Cacophonies of horns and drums - ever-present choruses of "hello! hello! your name?" from almost every passerby. And a population so extremely varied that they might have been living in three seperate centuries.

This last contrast especially has struck us quickly, and occupied us endlessly. From the warren of fire-lit, dusty streets in Karol Bagh, to the upscale Euro-chic dining in Kahn Market: Delhi is a microcosm of India's economic extremes. Passing from one side of the city to another, you can observe an upper-class poised on the cutting edge of a modern, techno-savvy, globalizing economy, and a lower-class living (dressing, marrying, medically treating) as if the past two hundred years never happened. For Brianne and I - freshly arrived and still extremely wary of the careening auto-rickshaws that were our only method of transportation - the experience was, to recycle a word, overwhelming.

Perhaps thankfully, we didn't actually spend much time in Delhi this first time around. Through a happy chance we had arrived in India just a few days before an international literary festival in the nearby city of Jaipur. And as we attended the festival and caught up with Divya, an old friend from Hope College who is now a five-year Delhi veteran, we got an even better look at the polar ends of the Indian spectrum. Geeked out beyond belief to be seeing favorite authors like Tom Stoppard and Jamaica Kincaid, we also had a unique opportunity to rub elbows with upper-crust intellectuals from Delhi and Mumbai. Divya pointed out to us famous journalists and poets, who decried censorship and applauded women's rights - all in fabulous English. We met a group of ex-pats from the U.S., Europe, and East Asia who had left struggling economies and waning opportunities back home to find that the doors of creativity and possibility were wide open in India. Now living lives unaffordable in their own countries, they could attend polo matches and long brunches at the Marriot. They founded literary magazines and started up companies. These were the people who had managed to ride the wave India's exploding economy and now lived in a world of unbelievable growth and opportunity.

And then, just across the city, or sometimes just around the corner, were the people for whom nothing seemed to have changed. 47% of India’s children below the age of three are malnourished, which is almost twice as many as in sub-Saharan Africa. More women die in a week in India from minor complications due to pregnancy than die for the same reasons in Europe in an entire year. Approximately 1.72 million Indian children die each year before turning one. All of this in the fifth richest country in the world, according to GDP. Though income inequality is no strange phenomenon these days, it's difficult to comprehend disparity on this great of a scale, not only of economic resources but of education, civil liberties, religious expression, and public health.

Okay, enough of the heavy lifting, you say. Where are the photos and fun? I promise more of those in updates to come, and I'll leave you with some of the bright moments from our first few days in India. I hope you'll forgive this departure from the light (some might say fluffy) tone of the last few updates, as I attempt to share some of the shocks - both thrilling and troubling - that India presents to the first-time traveler.