One Way Ticket

Red flags with hammer and sickle, marchers wearing red, and communes operating large tracks of rice producing areas are all remnants of the 1960s when India was officially neutral, but relied upon the Soviet Union for economic and military support as India struggled with the idea of a communist China. The Cold War was being waged between the capitalist economic world and the socialistic world. This very southern state in India is currently one of the most wealthy with almost 100% literacy and where bus drivers have legislated benefits which limit their hours behind the wheel preventing excessive road time, which is not practiced elsewhere in India. Politics in India is the diverse and complicated as is this nations history, culture and geography. It is a place of extremes and contradictions. It is a place of wealth and poverty, modern and ancient, embracing technology. It is changing and somewhat changeless. It is fast paced with an underlying calm.

What is an impression worth as an interpretation of only a few days as an observer. Our guide called India “a functioning chaos “. We are not sure whether we are glad to be leaving India or to be done with the pace of the organized tour. Today we begin a tour of Sri Lanka, which will give us something to compare this trip with the India trip. We did miss exploring on our own, slowly becoming familiar with our surroundings and having small encounters as we did this. (slowly and surprisingly, making contact with the people in our new environment.). But the tour exposed us to much more than we could have experienced if we had done this on our own.

Even in this most crowded nation, there is a sense of calmness. For example, motor bike, tuk tuk, and car horns honk, almost constantly, not out of anger, but to communicate. It is almost as a courtesy to prevent mishaps. The horns say “I am here near you, here I come, move over a bit. “. Our guide said there is no road rage in India. So even though there is chaos on the roads as lanes are ignored and even the mid strip is optional. It still works and traffic moves without stop signs and very, very, very few lights. India flows like the Ganges somehow. Cricket rules the sport scene and high tea abounds.