Welcome to India

I've always heard that nothing can prepare you for India and now I can safely say that is true. During my first few days in Hyderabad, I was staying with a friend, enjoying the comforts of his home and exploring this city of 6 million people while he was working. Each day I made the walk to the internet shop from his home. Though it took barely 10 minutes, it's amazing how much I would see and experience in just that time.

From his balcony that looked out on a serene courtyard, there was little hint of the chaos that lie just two blocks away. I would leave the house and pass the grinning lazy guards that sit in the shade and chat with drivers, patiently waiting to whisk their bosses into the city. Down a shaded road I continue, past drivers who dunk rags into soapy buckets and wash cars that will soon be consumed in the dust and smog of the city streets.

At the corner a large building is being constructed. Bamboo siding is roped together and hung between levels, their equivalent of our steel ladders, supports and wooden walkways. Workers here stand precariously upon bamboo and dangle a hundred feet or more above the ground, oblivious to any sign of danger. The workers buzz around the worksite like ants, each fulfilling a basic function of the large-scale construction project.

At the bottom level are the Untouchables who live upon the job site in squatters' tents, just A-frame shelters in the dust and mud, the sides and roof constructed of trash and debris. There are two families at the corner site, each with children barely old enough to walk. The lowest in the Hindu caste system, these people carry bricks and sand into the site, their heads wrapped in material to cushion and support the weight of stacked bricks or bags of sand. They live in squalor and filth yet dutifully sweep the road free of dust from the site. The hierarchy of the job site is a microcosm of the Indian caste system, for each worker seems to operate only within their level of participation, yet the sum of all parts completes the project.


It is when I reach the main road that my senses become overloaded. Horns are constantly blaring amidst a sea of traffic that never ceases. Buses barrel down the road like kings, seemingly oblivious to traffic, but still forced to swerve when they encounter the king of the road, the sacred cow. Below the buses are the automobiles, their numbers rapidly increasing and choking the crowded roadways while the auto rickshaws with their bright yellow paint battle for position in the space remaining. Then there are the motorcycles and they are found in any space they can fit, often with families of four sharing a single bike. And finally comes the pedestrians. Those who aren't hanging from overflowing buses or packed six deep in rickshaws are either on bicycle or foot. The bicyclists must have the nerve of kamikaze pilots for the dangers of riding a bike in this traffic make such a venture purely suicidal. At least those on foot have some maneuverability as they walk out into traffic.

As pedestrians, this truly is all you can do. Little can prepare you for such an action, yet life in India dictates that several times a day, one must risk life and limb to cross the road. Still there is a method. Facing a constant barrage of buses, cars, rickshaws and motorcycles that flow in both directions (though not necessarily in separate lanes), one must step out into the traffic and face the moving vehicles. The key is to move steadily or not at all. Drivers only naturally expect there to be obstacles in Indian roadways and spend their entire driving time avoiding them. So if one continues forward and moves at a steady speed, the driver will see and avoid them. The same goes for standing still. It's actually common to see a person standing in the middle of the road, sometimes even sleeping there.

All of this traffic moves together at a steady pace, never stopping and vehicles constantly jostle for position with their horns blaring and mufflers pouring fumes. Lanes mean nothing and the direction you're expected to travel is only the way you want to go. U-turns happen in the middle of crowded traffic and cars stop wherever they want. If a stop light even exists at an intersection, it?s merely a suggestion. Roadways in India are a river of constant motion and where rivers cross they merely collide and continue. And amidst it all, it's not uncommon to see a man riding a horse, an ox pulling a cart, or a legless beggar pulling himself across the road with sandals on his bruised and bleeding hands. People just drive around it.


I walk along the road for several blocks, the only white person to be seen, and truly feel as if I'm in another world. That which once was appalling is now commonplace. Poverty stares back at me from young hopeful eyes while trash heaps burning fill the air with putrid smoke. People relieve themselves on the roadside, as if thousands of vehicles and pedestrians weren't just feet away. Muslim women whisk through traffic, the hands that hold one another the only skin showing but their eyes. A man stumbles past, his face covered in blood, while onlookers taunt the unlucky bloke. Several toddlers dressed in rags cling merrily to the back of a bus that rumbles past, only slowing down at bus stops so passengers can jump on and off without the bus even stopping.

Now this is India.