Picture 1: Delhi

I don't want to die on this cab! The rule here is never take the most pushy cab driver, even if he is going to give you the best rate, because he has a death with, and when you enter his cab he passes that wish on to you. I had never arrived in Delhi in daylight, so it was bizzare to watch the world unflold as I passed it. Usually I have only a vague feeling that whatever is going on "out there" is chaotic and confusing. This time I saw the miles and miles of dusty construction sites, piles of rubble and earth and horders of laborers. The delhi metro system will at some point reach all the way to the airport, and further. But right now it is unfinished, pile of earth by pile of earth being moved on the backs of humans that weigh less than half of what I weigh, yet could probably pick me up and throw me across the room, if rooms existed along the highway.

Pahar ganj is like I remember it; crowded, smelly and full of touts. "You want room? hash? I have very nice! Best and Cheap! I don't want anything friend, just to practice english!" Do not engage, or you'll walk a half mile with them at your heels. Of course I forget a towel, so I must find one on the street. Later I spend around 30 minutes soaking the towel in a bucket of water, the deep blue die turing the water in to the color of the Atlantic ocean. It's 7pm on the day I have arrived. It is hot in Delhi and I know in order to get out of the city asap I need to buy a train ticket. With an unusual aount of energy I charge down the street towards the train staion, using my legs is liberating after 14 hrs sitting in a plane. The ground underneath me becomes uneven; craters and hills and I wonder what heppened to the flat tamped down earth. I flash on a newsheadline I have recentely read about a terroist bombing on this road a few years ago. Is that what this is? Could be, in this country remnants of events large and small seem to linger until time erases physical existance of them. Hot and cold, awake and tired, I just can't seem to find that space to rest in Delhi. And I know the train ride won't either. I remember the importance of practice and the impermenace of it all. And I laugh at how quickly I get homesick.