Slumdogs all: yes, YOU.

Airplane as metaphor: torture chamber. Flights beyond five-six hours numb the mind, heart and backside. The trip from San Francisco to Delhi, pausing in Frankfurt briefly to change planes at local midday, one night into the mission, seems endless.

Over Eastern Europe and Asia in daylight, barren territory slips by seven miles below. Over Afghanistan, the second night falls. Pakistan’s lights pin-prick the gloom as the air thickens visibly. At 1 AM local we circle Delhi, landing at 1:45—the major airlines time their 747 arrivals in the early hours to reduce congestion. Hah.

The 27-hour trip and 12½-hour time-zone shift leave me groggy and incoherent. The escalator depositing us into passport inspection keeps moving but the area is jammed with 1,000-plus passengers from three 747s. Men, women, children and carry-ons pile up at the bottom of the escalator, no way off, risers nipping at our heels. Death by trampling? No signs, no directions, no one in charge. Chaos. The Shangri-La Hotel limo introduces me to local traffic, wheeled terror. Birds of prey, raptors, are no doubt preparing to circle, ready to pick our bones. In my luxe room, I sleep at last.

Raptors thermal in the updrafts around the 20-story hotel, close enough almost for eye contact. Delhi’s few tall buildings create good soaring. Heat from the teeming traffic improves conditions. No raptor unlocks his/her wings to flap. Precise control of primary (flight) feathers, akin to fingertips, lets them control their circling beautifully—I recall soaring with eagles in the Sierra Nevada in my glider. Down on the ground, terrorist concerns compel security searches of every vehicle entering the hotel—open briefcases, even mirrors that scan the undersides.

That teeming traffic? Ah yes. It all comes back to me now, a distant nightmare from which I awake sweating. India is fascinating but the traffic and driving establish new levels of fear in your average Westerner (moi). Imminent death lurks every foot of the way. My two-hour Delhi-Agra train takes five hours by taxi, coming back.

The only rule: no rules. Only the thickness of paint separates bicyclists from the scooters (one, five up—father, mother + baby, two boys dangling in front), motorcycles, motorized rickshaws, taxis, cars, pickups, buses and trucks sharing the road with (truly) elephants, sacred cattle, stray dogs and pedestrians of every stripe.

That truck’s turn signal? I am turning this way! No, pass the other side! Guess. That red light? A mere suggestion. Pedestrians are video-game targets, seemingly oblivious to the manic metal menacing them. Objects in the mirror are not there. NO EYE CONTACT is the inflexible mandate. Horn advice ranges from simple greeting to full-on threat; oncoming stuff on the other side of the road (often one’s own side, with last-second ‘phenomenal avoidance’) comes with waves of polyphonous Doppler. The road ahead is illuminated by my white eyeballs, and I am only a passenger.

Flying into Delhi and Bangalore, the runways are smooth. These people can pour asphalt. You can’t prove it by the roads: potholes big enough to swallow trucks, pools of water (unknown depth), patches of gravel and the occasional immense hump or trench every few miles or every few yards that produce bone-jarring impacts unless anticipated with reduced speed.

Road signs? What road signs? Virtually every intersection carries no signs, leaving the traffic to sort it out in real time, relying on memory and the kindness of strangers. Other than that, driving is dull. You or I would last about a quarter of a mile at the wheel before the inevitable fatalities. Eeek.

Relief: Delhi’s new subway—five stops, five miles from fashionable Connaught Square, fifteen minutes. Driving, on the surface: an hour and a half, minimum. Ah, India.

Advertisement