“India is like a Where’s Waldo without the Waldo” – Will
Roscoe.
On the 23rd of December I began a month and a
half journey though India with my older brother. It began in Bangalore eating
Idly Vada Sambar and Masala Dosia, checking out the massive IT parks, Will
finishing up his last real work, and both sleeping
in his 10ft by 20ft room on the roof of 6 story building . After an all
but traditional Christmas we packed up and hopped a train to the coastal city of
Chennai.
In Chennai the first thing we did was head down to the beach
and watch the chaos of almost a dozen cricket games being played in the middle
of a sandy road. You couldn’t tell where one game ended and the other began.
While cars drove through the mayhem, balls got hit into the highway, toward the
ocean, and cheers went up for both. Throughout India I found myself wondering
how a billion people with different religions, social statuses, and languages
all managed to live so calmly in such chaos. If this country were full of the
French or Americans everybody would be at each other’s throats. Even if the
cricket pitcher was ready to make his running throw and a car honked the game was paused and the players would part until the car had driven
on into the next game. After watching part of the day’s matches we walked down
to the waterfront. As we neared the large numbers of fishing boats pulled up on
the shore and what looked like government housing Will commented on how much a
pile of crap looked like human feces. A few steps farther I confirmed that the
piles around us had to be human and that about 100 yards ahead of us someone
was adding to the problem. We turned around and carefully picked our way back
to the cricket games. In Chennai we also caught the most entertaining movie of
my life. Unlike the American theaters the Indian theaters are filled with
cheers and whistles as the good guys win and beautiful girls appear on screen.
There are also four to five music videos containing all the actors randomly
placed throughout the show, well worth the three dollars. After having a fun
New Years we made or way to one of the biggest cities in the world:
Mumbai.
Our goal for Mumbai was to buy a motorcycle and drive north.
We spent four days dealing with or trying to avoid licenses, registrations,
permits, and Indian bureaucracy to no avail. Suggestion: if you are going to
try and buy a motorcycle try the rest of the world before Mumbai. After failing
with the bike we felt we needed our 15 minutes of fame so we took up an offer
to act in a Bollywood soap opera. We were taken by taxi, train and rickshaw to
the studio and acted all night as background westerners. After 10 hours of
walking and dancing in the background we were ready to head back to the hotel
and get paid. We were paid a humbling 500 Rupees (about a dollar and hour).
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| Bollywood soap opera |
Then after poaching the Taj Mahal Hotel’s pool and meeting
the Author of Santaram we left the smells, sounds, and overflowing trains of
Mumbai and headed into the desert state of Rajasthan to pursue our dream of
motorcycling.
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Gregory David Roberts the man himself - Aurthur of Shantaram |
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| Indian Christmas |
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| Family headed to work |
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