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The Passing of Time
I was surprised to feel melancholy... a dull presence of emptiness... as I buckled up for the flight from India to Thailand. I looked at Benjamin, who had a broad smile on his face, and told him, "I feel sad, but I don't know why."
He was excited to move on from India, but I felt confused to already be 'missing' it, a place I didn't think I would ever 'miss' in the full sense of the word. Sure, we had plenty of good times... fun times, but they all came with a healthy dose of hardship. Perhaps the 'good times' were only 'average times', but sweetened by the trials of getting from one place to another or in getting things done. The pay-off could be nothing but Awesome for the mere fact of having completed the task with some success.
So why was I sad? I wasn't feeling sorry to leave India... It's difficult. A lot of things don't make sense. India is not a country built on logic.
Take the issues with garbage and pollution. We read in the Bangkok Post the other day about how a court passed a ruling to ban cows from wondering the streets of New Delhi. The court cited several reasons for the ban: 1) they get in the way of traffic and 2) they pull garbage from the dustbins.
I never saw a trash can myself -- Benjamin says he saw one or two in all of India -- be it a rural village or a big city, garbage is casually tossed on the ground. Once we hired a car to take us sightseeing in Rajasthan. Benjamin had finished a bag of chips and when the driver noticed him neatly folding the bag to place it under the floor mat for the time being, he asked that Benjamin throw the bag out of the window. Benjamin said he'd throw it away at the end of the day, when we got back to the hotel... but the idea of filth in his car was too much. The driver insisted the bag should be tossed from the window... out into the unblemished beauty of the countryside.
Garbage is strewn along the sides of roads to the point where it becomes invisible, it becomes a part of the landscape. In some streets and alleyways, the trash collects in massive piles too wide and high to walk or drive around. This is where the cows like to hang out; they feed on the garbage. These 'holy' cows are eating India's trash and suffering from plastic bags that get wound around their intestines, causing a painful death. If anything, the court should ban littering rather than the cows, but that would just make too much sense.
As for the traffic... while cows do get in the way, so do the rickshaws, oxen-drawn carts, pedicabs, automobiles, delivery trucks, busses, motorcycles, bicycles, goats, pigs, dogs, and any other vehicular object one can imagine. If its mobile, it can be found on the street. And then there's all the people. There are no sidewalks except in the big cities, and even there people walk in the streets. There are no discernible traffic rules, whether driving or walking -- it's a chaotic malay of moving objects, resulting in the neverending sounds of honking and beeping as people lay on their horns to keep from colliding with something or other. Somehow it all seems to work, though -- I never saw one crash or one crushed foot... but that's not to say it's a good system.
If that court in New Delhi wants to fix the traffic, they shouldn't blame it on the cows. They're the slowest moving objects in the street, and because of their holy status, attention is made to avoid hitting them. In my mind, they serve as a sort of cheap 'speed bump', at times keeping the pace of traffic sane and providing a shield for the blind or elderly. While walking behind a cow might be prove dangerous -- cow paddies are probably slippery -- at least the bovines can be used as 'protection' from the traffic for the less daring pedestrians.
But other than the strange logic, garbage, and traffic, there's much more to frustrate a person traveling in India...
It's impossible to get a straight answer. Everything in India is either 'not possible' or 'no problem'. There seems to be no answer in between, like one that consists of more than two words, details, or specifics.
There is no concept of 'rude behavior'. It's a country where the sound of loogies could be its soundtrack. Men pee on buildings along the side of the road; people burp and fart without embarrassment; everyone gawks and stares at anyone and everyone not like them (in other words, at us... the people with white skin).
Oddly enough, it's the things that don't make sense in India... its ironies, foibles, and flaws... that make India lovable in its own particular way. Lovable in the way that a child's nervous tick or bad habit, such as nose picking or bed wetting, makes them endearing. Lovable in the way that an evil seductress in a soap opera keeps an audience tuning in week after week to get angry and yell at the TV. Lovable in the way that we root for the bad guy in movies and laugh when we see a clumbsy friend trip on a curb or stumble from a crack in the sidewalk. It's not always the pleasant things that make a person or place unique, and it's their unique qualities that makes them special to us.
These things make people smile, whether they love them or hate them, whether they're right or wrong. These things keep life interesting and give people something to talk about, or at least something to complain about. These things bind people together in the way that only humor, sorrow, and disgrace can.
But that's not why I was sad to leave India... this point of view is the kind of thing that takes time to appreciate... and I was only on the plane... still on the runway... not even out of India yet!
I was sad because endings are sad. It's a given. Like a death, a good book that you don't want to end, a breakup, or an empty bottle of wine... endings are sad. Endings move things from the here-and-now and place them into memory, turning them romantic and sentimental and fragile, for some day the memory might disappear.
But more than that, I was sad to have completed the first leg of our trip. Normally I am happy with 'completion' -- it means I've accomplished a goal or will get paid for work I've done. But in this context, completion means I'm moving toward the end of the trip... and odd feeling after so many years of moving towards the trip. And even though it's only been 2 months of the 9 months (or 12) we plan to travel, I can't help but think about the passage of time, how quickly it moves... how quickly my 'big adventure' will come to an end.
I remind myself, however, that with every ending there is a beginning... the start of something new. And this particular ending, leaving India, was a little one in the grand scope of things. And there are many beginnings awaiting me in the future -- and beginnings are way more exciting than those sad endings. What do I have to worry about afterall?
Like the silent space between songs on an album... that is the space I occupy now. I'll stop thinking about the future and the eventual end I'd like to avoid... For now I'll live in the moment and not mourn the passing of time, but embrace the coming of time, I still have many months to go.
He was excited to move on from India, but I felt confused to already be 'missing' it, a place I didn't think I would ever 'miss' in the full sense of the word. Sure, we had plenty of good times... fun times, but they all came with a healthy dose of hardship. Perhaps the 'good times' were only 'average times', but sweetened by the trials of getting from one place to another or in getting things done. The pay-off could be nothing but Awesome for the mere fact of having completed the task with some success.
So why was I sad? I wasn't feeling sorry to leave India... It's difficult. A lot of things don't make sense. India is not a country built on logic.
Take the issues with garbage and pollution. We read in the Bangkok Post the other day about how a court passed a ruling to ban cows from wondering the streets of New Delhi. The court cited several reasons for the ban: 1) they get in the way of traffic and 2) they pull garbage from the dustbins.
I never saw a trash can myself -- Benjamin says he saw one or two in all of India -- be it a rural village or a big city, garbage is casually tossed on the ground. Once we hired a car to take us sightseeing in Rajasthan. Benjamin had finished a bag of chips and when the driver noticed him neatly folding the bag to place it under the floor mat for the time being, he asked that Benjamin throw the bag out of the window. Benjamin said he'd throw it away at the end of the day, when we got back to the hotel... but the idea of filth in his car was too much. The driver insisted the bag should be tossed from the window... out into the unblemished beauty of the countryside.
Garbage is strewn along the sides of roads to the point where it becomes invisible, it becomes a part of the landscape. In some streets and alleyways, the trash collects in massive piles too wide and high to walk or drive around. This is where the cows like to hang out; they feed on the garbage. These 'holy' cows are eating India's trash and suffering from plastic bags that get wound around their intestines, causing a painful death. If anything, the court should ban littering rather than the cows, but that would just make too much sense.
As for the traffic... while cows do get in the way, so do the rickshaws, oxen-drawn carts, pedicabs, automobiles, delivery trucks, busses, motorcycles, bicycles, goats, pigs, dogs, and any other vehicular object one can imagine. If its mobile, it can be found on the street. And then there's all the people. There are no sidewalks except in the big cities, and even there people walk in the streets. There are no discernible traffic rules, whether driving or walking -- it's a chaotic malay of moving objects, resulting in the neverending sounds of honking and beeping as people lay on their horns to keep from colliding with something or other. Somehow it all seems to work, though -- I never saw one crash or one crushed foot... but that's not to say it's a good system.
If that court in New Delhi wants to fix the traffic, they shouldn't blame it on the cows. They're the slowest moving objects in the street, and because of their holy status, attention is made to avoid hitting them. In my mind, they serve as a sort of cheap 'speed bump', at times keeping the pace of traffic sane and providing a shield for the blind or elderly. While walking behind a cow might be prove dangerous -- cow paddies are probably slippery -- at least the bovines can be used as 'protection' from the traffic for the less daring pedestrians.
But other than the strange logic, garbage, and traffic, there's much more to frustrate a person traveling in India...
It's impossible to get a straight answer. Everything in India is either 'not possible' or 'no problem'. There seems to be no answer in between, like one that consists of more than two words, details, or specifics.
There is no concept of 'rude behavior'. It's a country where the sound of loogies could be its soundtrack. Men pee on buildings along the side of the road; people burp and fart without embarrassment; everyone gawks and stares at anyone and everyone not like them (in other words, at us... the people with white skin).
Oddly enough, it's the things that don't make sense in India... its ironies, foibles, and flaws... that make India lovable in its own particular way. Lovable in the way that a child's nervous tick or bad habit, such as nose picking or bed wetting, makes them endearing. Lovable in the way that an evil seductress in a soap opera keeps an audience tuning in week after week to get angry and yell at the TV. Lovable in the way that we root for the bad guy in movies and laugh when we see a clumbsy friend trip on a curb or stumble from a crack in the sidewalk. It's not always the pleasant things that make a person or place unique, and it's their unique qualities that makes them special to us.
These things make people smile, whether they love them or hate them, whether they're right or wrong. These things keep life interesting and give people something to talk about, or at least something to complain about. These things bind people together in the way that only humor, sorrow, and disgrace can.
But that's not why I was sad to leave India... this point of view is the kind of thing that takes time to appreciate... and I was only on the plane... still on the runway... not even out of India yet!
I was sad because endings are sad. It's a given. Like a death, a good book that you don't want to end, a breakup, or an empty bottle of wine... endings are sad. Endings move things from the here-and-now and place them into memory, turning them romantic and sentimental and fragile, for some day the memory might disappear.
But more than that, I was sad to have completed the first leg of our trip. Normally I am happy with 'completion' -- it means I've accomplished a goal or will get paid for work I've done. But in this context, completion means I'm moving toward the end of the trip... and odd feeling after so many years of moving towards the trip. And even though it's only been 2 months of the 9 months (or 12) we plan to travel, I can't help but think about the passage of time, how quickly it moves... how quickly my 'big adventure' will come to an end.
I remind myself, however, that with every ending there is a beginning... the start of something new. And this particular ending, leaving India, was a little one in the grand scope of things. And there are many beginnings awaiting me in the future -- and beginnings are way more exciting than those sad endings. What do I have to worry about afterall?
Like the silent space between songs on an album... that is the space I occupy now. I'll stop thinking about the future and the eventual end I'd like to avoid... For now I'll live in the moment and not mourn the passing of time, but embrace the coming of time, I still have many months to go.
posted by Cheryn at 2:48 PM
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