India: The First 6 Hours

India started on the flight from New York.

There was the obvious excitement and faint smell of incense as I stood on the jetbridge. Boarding the plane, Western concepts of organization, courtesy and personal space were being reordered to Indian standards. I was one of the only white dudes, and starting to feel naked without a neatly-combed part in my hair and jet-black moustache. I couldn't help grinning.

The entire journey had a dream-like quality, leaving the bitter cold of New England and flying east to the Subcontinent via Qatar. We crossed the Arabian peninsula at dusk, vast expanses of desert and mountain glowing rosy pink under fluffy purple clouds. Changing planes in Doha, night on the tarmac was warm and clear. I could smell salt in the humid air. I watched a Bollywood film on the next leg to get in the mood, and the marketplace dance numbers and wailing soundtrack set off a cascade of memories from my first trip to India five years previous.

Jostled off the plane at 3am in Chennai, I shuffled up the ramp and into one of the ugliest airports I've ever seen. The threadbare blue carpet and dirty marble was depressing, and in my rush to get out I squabbled needlessly with the passport control officer. Why is this blank? Address in India? I don't have one. You must have an address. Fill it out! he barked, and shoved the arrival from back across the counter. My brows furrowed, and I simply made one up in front of him. He knew this, but the form being properly filled out, he took it and smiled. Next! 

Outside the terminal I tried not to drown in the stifling heat and unconsciously slipped back into habits learned years before, avoiding eye contact with anyone who might be a taxi driver, travel agent or hotel tout. I drank a coffee, found an ATM and put a strategy together with a friendly airport rep named Deepak. He suggested I take a cab to Thambaram, then a bus down to Mahabalipuram on the coast. Despite the a long line of cabs waiting at the curb, Deepak insisted on calling his friend (who would no doubt give him a little kickback from the fare later.) I allowed this as a little thank you for his help, and waited for his friend to arrive. As Kumar drove me to the bus stop, I started getting a flashback from my first time in India. That trip had also started with a nighttime taxi trip, albeit one that turned into an unwanted tour of squatters' fires, wandering cows and money-changing scams in Delhi. This time I was more relaxed and just took it all in.

The city of Chennai was wrapped in a balmy predawn haze, fuzzy pools of lamplight revealing stray dogs and streetsleepers wrapped in blankets. Gaunt cows grazed on the trash that drifted like snow against fences and buildings. Rickshaw drivers and early risers congregated around the few open tea stalls, standing out in the darkness like bright fountains of milky steam. Waiting at the bus station, I watched the buses careen in and out, headlights swinging and cutting through the dust like light sabers. A few bicycle tea-sellers tried to scare up some business, but the crowd at the stop was a quiet one, and they disappeared again. Smells came and went: cumin seeds popping in hot oil, masala and tea, the acrid sting of burning trash.

Just as I was beginning to doubt Deepak's word, bus 515 pulled to the platform and lurched to a stop. The frowning driver and pudgy conductor, groggily rubbing his face, got off for a quick cup of chai. Soon we pulled away from the crowds as a soft scarlet glow lit the edge of the city. Driving along, I checked out the scene. Crumbling shopfronts spilling commerce into the street. Motorbikes and rickshaws buzzing like bees around a hive. A bullock cart hauling milk. Women filling water containers at communal taps. Before long, we left the city behind and plumes of bamboo and banana overhung the road, then miles and miles of rice paddies. After an hour of flat stretches and small towns, we barreled down the main street of Mahabalipuram, famous for religious stone-carving, old temples and shrine caves. I'd sketched a map of town in my notebook in preparation for finding a guesthouse, but as soon as I stepped off the bus I met a short man with a brown wool hat and a thick salt-and-pepper moustache. "You need a place? Lakshmi Lodge?" I surrendered myself to the path of least resistance, in the form of my new friend and a battered black-and-yellow rickshaw, and we bumped and sputtered down the back lanes toward the beach, toward the Bay of Bengal. Uniformed schoolkids shouting to each other, a man brushing his teeth in the gutter, shopkeepers sweeping and lighting incense, cows nosing trash heaps, people reading newspapers and drinking chai.


A few minutes later, after a lift from my father, three flights, a cab, a bus and a rickshaw, I was showered and sitting in the leafy courtyard, watching crows flap over the roofs in the building heat. I could smell ginger and incense, and somewhere nearby a woman hummed to herself as she hung washing out to dry. Five more weeks. . .